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''Acculturation"  o£  "primitive" 


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MODERN    SCIENCE 

EDITED  BY  SIR  JOHN  LUBBOCK,  BART.,  M.P. 


ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 


MODERN     SCIENCE. 

Edited  by  SIR  JOHN  LUBBOCK,  Bart.,  M.P. 


I. 
THE     CAUSE     OF    AN     ICE    AGE. 

By  SIR  ROBERT  BALL,  LL.D.,  F.R.&, 

Loicndean  Profestor  of  Astronomy  and  Geometry  in  the 

University  of  Cambridge. 

II. 
THE   HOESE: 

A  Study  in  Natural  History. 

By  WILLIAM  HENRY  FLOWER,  OJB, 
Director  of  the  British  Natural  History  Museum. 

III. 

THE    OAK : 

A  Popular  Introduction  to  Forest-Botany. 
By  H.  MARSHALL  WARD,  F.R.S.,  F.L.S. 

IV. 
ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE. 

By   GEORGE    LAURENCE    GOMME,    F.S.A. 
Pretident  of  the  Folklore  Society,  Ac. 


London :  KEGAN  PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER  &  CO.  LTD. 


ETHNOLOGY    IN    FOLKLORE 


BY 


GEORGE    LAUEENCE    GOMME,  F.S.A. 

PRESIDENT  OP  THE  FOLKLORE  SOCIETY 
ETC. 


LONDON 
KEGAN  PAUL,   TRENCH,  TRUBNER   &   CO.   LTD. 

PATBBNOSTBB  HOUSE,  CHARING  CROSS   ROAD 
1892 


(The  rights  of  translation  and  of  reproduction  are  reserved) 


PBEFACE 


I  HAVE  sought  in  this  book  to  ascertain  and  set  forth 
the  principles  upon  which  folklore  may  be  classified,  in 
order  to  arrive  at  some  of  the  results  which  should 
follow  from  its  study.  That  it  contains  ethnological 
elements  might  be  expected  by  all  who  have  paid  any 
attention  to  recent  research,  but  no  attempt  has  hitherto 
been  made  to  set  these  elements  down  categorically  and 
to  examine  the  conclusions  which  are  to  be  drawn  from 
them. 

It  is  due  to  the  large  and  increasing  band  of  folklore 
devotees  that  the  uses  of  folklore  should  be  brought 
forward.  The  scoffer  at  these  studies  is  apt  to  have  it  all 
his  own  way  so  long  as  the  bulk  of  the  books  published 
on  folklore  contain  nothing  but  collected  examples  of 
tales,  customs,  and  superstitions,  arranged  for  no 
purpose  but  that  of  putting  the  facts  pleasantly  before 
readers.  But,  more  than  this,  recent  research  tends  to 
show  the  increasing  importance  of  bringing  into  proper 
order,  within  reasonable  time,  all  the  evidence  that  is 
available  from  different  sources  upon  any  given  subject 


20C9863 


vi  ETHNOLOGY   IN   FOLKLORE 

of  inquiry.  Looked  at  in  this  light,  ethnology  has 
great  claims  upon  the  student.  The  science  of  culture 
has  almost  refused  to  deal  with  it,  and  has  been  content 
with  noting  only  a  few  landmarks  which  occur  here  ami 
there  along  the  lines  of  development  traceable  in  the 
elements  of  human  culture.  But  the  science  of  history 
has  of  late  been  busy  with  many  problems  of  ethno- 
logical importance,  and  has  for  this  purpose  turned 
sometimes  to  craniology,  sometimes  to  archeology, 
sometimes  to  philology,  but  rarely  to  folklore.  If  folk- 
lore, then,  does  contain  ethnological  facts,  it  is  time  that 
they  should  be  disclosed,  and  that  the  method  of  dis- 
covering them  should  be  placed  before  scholars. 

Of  course,  my  attempt  in  this  direction  must  not  be 
looked  upon  in  any  sense  as  an  exhaustive  treatment  of 
the  subject,  and  I  am  not  vain  enough  to  expect  that 
all  my  conclusions  will  be  accepted.  I  believe  that  the 
time  has  come  when  every  item  of  folklore  should  be 
docketed  and  put  into  its  proper  place,  and  I  hope  I 
have  done  something  towards  this  end  in  the  following 
pages.  When  complete  classification  is  attempted  some 
of  the  items  of  folklore  will  be  found  useless  enough. 
But  most  of  them  will  help  us  to  understand  more  of  the 
development  of  thought  than  any  other  subject;  and  many 
of  them  will,  if  my  reading  of  the  evidence  is  correct, 
take  us  back,  not  only  to  stages  in  the  history  of  human 
thought,  but  to  the  people  who  have  yielded  up  the 
struggle  of  their  minds  to  the  modern  student  of  man 
and  his  strivings. 


PREFACE  vii 

At  the  risk  of  crowding  the  pages  with  footnotes, 
I  have  been  careful  to  give  references  to  all  my 
authorities  for  items  of  folklore,  because  so  much 
depends  upon  the  value  of  the  authority  used  in  these 
studies.  I  believe  they  are  all  quoted  accurately,  but 
shall  always  be  glad  to  know  of  any  corrections  or 
additions. 

Professor  Rhys  has  kindly  read  through  my  proofs, 
and  I  am  very  grateful  for  the  considerable  service  he 
has  thereby  rendered  me. 

BARNES  COMMON,  S.W. 
March  1892. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAOE 

I.    SURVIVAL  AND  DEVELOPMENT 1 

II.    ETHNIC  ELEMENTS  IN  CUSTOM  AND  RITUAL  .        .  21 

III.  THE  MYTHIC  INFLUENCE  OF  A  CONQUERED  RACE  .  41 

IV.  THE  LOCALISATION  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF       .        .  66 
V.    THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE      .        .    .  109 

VI.    THE  CONTINUATION  OF  RACES 173 

INDEX  194 


ETHNOLOGY    IN    FOLKLORE 

CHAPTER  I 

SURVIVAL   AND   DEVELOPMENT 

THERE  has  grown  up  of  late  years  a  subject  of  inquiry- 
first  antiquarian  merely,  and  now  scientific — into  the 
peasant  and  local  elements  in  modern  culture,  and  this 
subject  has  not  inaptly  been  termed  '  folklore.'  Almost 
always  at  the  commencement  of  a  new  study  much  is 
done  by  eager  votaries  which  has  to  be  undone  as  soon 
as  settled  work  is  undertaken,  and  it  happens,  I  think, 
that  because  the  elements  of  folklore  are  so  humble  and 
unpretentious,  because  they  have  to  be  sought  for  in  the 
peasant's  cottage  or  fields,  in  the  children's  nursery,  or 
from  the  lips  of  old  gaffers  and  gammers,  that  unusual 
difficulties  have  beset  the  student  of  folklore.  Not  only 
has  he  to  undo  any  futile  work  that  stands  in  the  way 
"of  his  special  inquiry,  but  he  has  to  attempt  the  re- 
building of  his  edifice  in  face  of  contrasts  frequently 
drawn  between  the  elements  which  make  up  his  subject 


2  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

and  those  supposed  more  dignified  elements  with  which 
the  historian,  the  archaeologist,  and  the  philologist  have 

to  deal. 

The   essential   characteristic  of   folklore  is  that  it 

consists^  beliefs,  customs,  and  traditions  which  are  far 
behind  civilisation  in  their  intrinsic  value  to  man, 
though  they  exist  under  the  cover  of  a  civilised 
nationality.  This  estimate  of  the  position  of  folklore 
with  reference  to  civilisation  suggests  that  its  con- 
stituent elements  are  survivals  of  a  condition  of  human 
thought  more  backward,  and  therefore  more  ancient, 
than  that  in  which  they  are  discovered. 

Except  to  the  students  of  anthropology,  the  fact  of 
the  existence  of  survivals  of  older  culture  in  our  midst 
is  not  readily  grasped  or  understood.  Historians  have 
been  so  engrossed  with  the  political  and  commercial 
progress  of  nations  that  it  is  not  easy  to  determine 
what  room  they  would  make  in  the  world  for  the  non- 
progressive  portion  of  the  population.  And  yet  the  his- 
tory of  every  country  must  begin  with  the  races  who 
have  occupied  it.  Almost  everywhere  in  Europe  there 
are  traces,  in  some  form  or  other,  of  a  powerful  race  of 
people,  unknown  in  modern  history,  who  have  left 
material  remains  of  their  culture  to  later  ages.  The 
Celts  have  written  their  history  on  the  map  of  Europe 
in  a  scarcely  less  marked  manner  than  the  Teutons, 
and  we  still  talk  of  Celtic  countries  and  Teutonic 
countries.  On  the  other  hand,  Greek  and  Eoman 
civilisations  have  in  some  countries  and  some  districts 


SURVIVAL  AND   DEVELOPMENT  3 

an  almost  unbroken  record,  in  spite  of  much  modifi- 
cation and  development.  With  such  an  amalgam  in 
the  background,  historians  have  scarcely  ever  failed 
to  draw  the  picture  of  European  civilisation  in  deep 
colours,  tinted  according  to  their  bias  in  favour  of  a 
Celtic,  or  Teutonic,  or  classical  origin.  But  the 
picture  of  uncivilisation  within  the  same  area  has  not 
been  drawn.  The  story  always  is  of  the  advanced 
part  of  nations,1  though  even  here  it  occurs  to  me  that 
very  frequently  the  terminology  is  still  more  in  advance 
of  the  facts,  so  that  while  everyone  has  heard  a  great 
deal  of  the  conditions  of  civilisation,  very  few  people 
have  any  adequate  idea  of  the  unadvanced  lines  of 
Eui'opean  life. 

It  will  be  seen  that  I  accentuate  the  contrast  between 
civilisation  and  uncivilisation  within  the  same  area,  and 
the  purpose  of  this  accentuation  will  be  seen  when  the 
significant  difference  in  origin  is  pointed  out. 

Dr.  Tylor  states  that  the  elevation  of  some  branches 
of  a  race  over  the  rest  more  often  happens  as  the  result 
of  foreign  than  of  native  action.  '  Civilisation- i&-a  plant 
much  oftener  propagated  than  developed,'  he  says.2 
How  true  this  remark  is  will  be  recognised  by  anyone 
familiar  with  the  main  outlines  of  the  history  of  civilisa- 
tion, ancient  or  modern.  An  axiom  formulated  by  Sir 
Arthur  Mitchell  that  '  no  man  in  isolation  can  become 

1  Some  confirmation  of  this  from  classical  history  was  pointed 
out  by  Dr.  Beddoe  in  his  address  to  the  Anthrop.  Inst.  (see  Journal, 
xx.  355). 

2  Primitive  Culture,  i.  48. 

B  2 


4  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

civilised,'  may  be  extended  to  societies.  Whether  in 
the  case  of  Roman,  Greek,  Assyrian,  Egyptian,  or  even 
Chinese  civilisation,  a  point  has  always  been  reached 
at  which  scholars  have  had  to  turn  their  attention  from 
the  land  where  these  civilisations  were  consummated 
to  some  other  land  or  people,  whose  influence  in  build- 
ing them  up  is  detected  in  considerable  force.  And  so 
it  is  in  the  western  world.  There  are  few  scholars  now 
who  advocate  the  theory  of  an  advanced  Celtic  or 
Teutonic  civilisation.  Ronian^Ja^^GreeX^philosophy 
and  art,  and  Christian  religion  and  ethics  have  com- 
bined in  producing  a  civilisation  which  is  essentially 
foreign  to  the  soil  whereon  it  now  flourishes. 

But  with  uncivilisation  the  case  is  very  different. 
Arrested  by  forces  which  we  cannot  but  identify  with 
the  civilisations  which  have  at  various  times  swept  over 
it,  it  seems  embedded  in  the  soil  where  it  was  first 
transplanted,  and  has  no  power  or  chance  of  fresh  pro- 
pagation. There  is  absolutely  no  evidence,  in  spite  of 
allegations  to  the  contrary,  of  the  introduction  of 
uncivilised  culture  into  countries  already  in  possession 
of  a  higher  culture.  And  yet,it  is  found  everywhere 
and  is  kept  alive  by  the  sanction  of  tradition— the  tradi- 
tional observance  of  what  has  always  been  observed, 
simply  because  it  has  always  been  observed.  Thus, 
after  the  law  of  the  land  has  been  complied  with  and 
the  marriage  knot  has  been  effectually  tied,  traditional 
custom  imposes  certain  rites  which  may  without  ex- 
aggeration be  styled  irrational,  rude,  and  barbarous 


SURVIVAL  AND   DEVELOPMENT  5 

After  the  Church  has  conducted  to  its  last  resting-place 
the  corpse  of  the  departed,  traditional^ belief  necessitates 
the  performance  of  some  magic  rite  which  may  with 
propriety  be  considered  not  only  rude,  but  savage. 
Underneath  the  law  and  the  Church,  therefore,  the 
emblems  of  the  foreign  civilisation,  lie  the  traditional 
custom  and  belief,  the  attributes  of  the  native  uncivili- 
sation.  And  the  native  answer  to  any  inquiry  as  to 
why  these  irrational  elements  exist  is  invariably  the 
same — '  They  are  obliged  to  do-  it-Jbr  antiquity  or 
custom's—sake.  ?j^  they  do  it  because  they  believe  in 
it,  '  as  things  that  had  been  and  were  real,  and  not  as 
creations  of  the  fancy  or  old-wives'  tales  and  babbled 
Even  after  real  belief  has  passed  away  the  habit  con-\ 
tinues  ;  there  is  '  a  sort  of  use  and  wont  in  it  which, 
though  in  a  certain  sense  honoured  in  its  observance,  it 
is  felt,  in  some  sort  of  indirect,  unmeditated,  un volitional 
sort  of  way,  would  not  be  dishonoured  in  the  breach.' 2 

The  significant  answer  of  the  peasant,  when  ques- 
tioned as  to  the  cause  of  his  observing  rude  and 
irrational  customs,  of  entertaining  strange  and  uncouth 
beliefs,  marks  a  very  important  characteristic  of  what 
has  been  so  conveniently  termed  folklore.  All  that  the 

1  Buchan's  St.  Eilda,  p.  35.  Mr.  Atkinson  gives  much  the  same 
testimony  of  Yorkshire.  Inquiring  as  to  a  usage  practised  on  a 
farm,  the  answer  was  :  '  Ay,  there's  many  as  dis  it  yet.  My  au'd 
father  did  it.  But  it's  sae  many  years  syne  it  must  be  about  wore 
out  by  now,  and  I  shall  have  to  dee  it  again.'  —Forty  Years  in  a 
Moorland  Parish,  p.  62.  Miss  Gordon  Cumming's  example  of  the  force 
of  custom  in  her  book  on  the  Hebrides  is  very  amusing  (p.  209). 

-  Atkinson,  op.  tit.  pp.  63,  72. 


6  ETHNOLOGY   IN  FOLKLORE 

peasantry  practise,  believe,  and  relate  on  the  strength  of 
immemorial  custom  sanctioned  by  unbroken  succession 
from  one  generation  to  another,  has  a  value  of  peculiar 
significance  so  soon  as  it  is  perceived  that  the  genealogy 
of  each  custom,  belief,  or  legend  in  nearly  all  cases  goes 
back  for  its  commencing  point  to  some  fact  in  the 
history  of  the  people  which  has  escaped  the  notice  of 
the  historian.  No  act  of  legislation,  no  known  factor 
in  the  records  of  history,  can  be  pointed  to  as  the  origin 
of  the  practices,  beliefs,  and  traditions  of  the  peasantry, 
which  exist  in  such  great  abundance.  They  are  date- 
less and  parentless  when  reckoned  by  the  facts  of 
civilisation.  They  are  treasured  and  reverenced,  kept 
secret  from  Church,  law  and  legislation,  handed  down 
by  tradition,  when  reckoned  by  the  facts  of  peasant 
life.  That  these  dateless  elements  in  the  national 
culture  are  also  very  frequently  rude,  irrational,  and 
senseless  only  adds  to  the  significance  of  their  existence 
and  to  the  necessity  of  some  adequate  explanation  of 
that  existence  being  supplied. 

No  one  would  pretend  that  modern  civilisation  con- 
sciously admits  within  its  bounds  practices  and  beliefs 
like  those  enshrined  in  folklore,  and  Jew  will  argue  that 
modern  civilisation  is  an  evolution  in  direct  line  from 
such  rude  originals.  ,  The  theory  that  best  meets  the  case 
is  that  they  are  to  be  identified  with  the  rude  culture  of 
ancient  Europe,  which  has  been  swept  over  by  waves  of 
higher  culture  from  foreign  sources,  that  nearly  every- 
where the  rude  culture  has  succumbed  to  the  force  of 


SURVIVAL   AND   DEVELOPMENT  7 

these  waves,  but  has  nevertheless  here  and  there  stood 
firm. 

Now,  these  being  the  conditions  under  which  the 
survivals  of  ancient  customs  and  beliefs  exist,  we  have 
to  note  that  they  cannot  by  any  possibility  develop. 
Having  been  arrested  in  their  progress  by  some  out- 
side force,  their  development  ceases.  They  continue, 
generation  after  generation,  either  in  a  state  of  abso- 
lute crystallisation  or  they  decay  and  split  up  into  frag- 
ments ;  they  become  degraded  into  mere  symbolism  or 
whittled  down  into  mere  superstition ;  they  drop  back 
from  a  position  of  general  use  or  observance  by  a  whole 
community  into  the  personal  observance  of  some  few 
individuals,  or  of  a  class ;  they  cease  to  affect  the 
general  conduct  of  the  people,  and  become  isolated 
and  secret.  Thus'  in  folklore  there  is  no  development 
from  one  stage  of  culture  to  a  higher  one. 

These  considerations_^serve  to  show  how  distinctly 
folklore  is  marked  off  from  the  political  and  social  sui 
roundings  in  which  it  is  embedded,  and  all  questions 
to  its  origin  must  therefore  be  a  specific  inquiry  deal- 
ing with  all  the  facts.  The  answer  of  the  peasant 
already  given  shows  the  road  which  must  be  taken 
for  such  a  purpose.  We  must  travel  back  from 
generation  to  generation  of  peasant  life  until  a  stage  is 
reached  where  isolated  beliefs  and  customs  of  the 
peasantry  of  to-day  are  found  to  occupy  a  foremost  place 
in  tribal  or  national  custom.  To  do  this,  the  aid  of 
comparative  custom  and  belief  must  be  invoked.  As 


8  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 

Mr.  Lang  has  so  well  expressed  it,  '  When  .aji-apparently 
irrational  and  anomalous  custom  is  found  in  any  country 
the  method  is  to  look  for  a  country  where  a  similar 
practice  is  no  longer  irrational  or  anomalous,  but  in 
harmony  with  the  manners  and  ideas  of  the  people 
among  whom  it  prevails.' l  Here,  then,  will  be  found 
the  true  meaning  of  customs  and  beliefs  which  exist 
uselessly  in  the  midst  of  civilisation.  Their  rela- 
tionship to  other  customs  and  beliefs  at  a  similar  level 
of  culture  will  also  be  ascertained.  When  we  sub- 
tract any  particular  custom  of  an  uncivilised  people 
from  the  general  body  of  its  associated  customs,  in  order 
to  compare  it  with  a  similar  custom  existing  in  isolated 
form  in  civilisation,  we  are  careful  to  note  what  other 
customs  exist  side  by  side  with  it  in  co-relationship. 
These  are  its  natural  adhesions,  so  to  speak,  and  bv  fol- 

tf 

lowing  them  out  we  may  also  discover  natural  adhesions 
in  folklore.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  work  of  com- 
parison having  been  accomplished  with  reference  to  the 
group  of  customs  and  beliefs  in  natural  adhesion  to  each 
other,  there  will  be  found  in  folklore  a  large  residuum 
of  manifest  inconsistencies.  I  am  inclined  to  lay  consi- 
derable stress  upon  these  inconsistencies  in  folklore.  They 
have  been  noted  frequently  enough,  but  have  not  been 
adequately  explained.  They  have  been  set  down  to  the 
curious  twistings  of  the  human  mind  when  indulging 
in  mythic  thought.  But  I  shall  have  another  explana- 
tion to  give,  which  will  rest  upon  the  facts  of  ethnology. 

1   Custom  and  Myth,  p.  21. 


Is  it  true,  then,  that  the  process  of  comparison 
between  the  elements  of  folklore  and  the  customs  and 
beliefs  of  uncivilised  or  savage  people  can  be  carried  out 
to  any  considerable  extent,  or  is  it  limited  to  a  few 
isolated  and  exceptional  examples  ?  It  is  obvious  that 
this  question  is  a  vital  one.  It  will  be  partly  answered 
in  the  following  pages  ;  but  in  the  meantime  it  may  be 
pointed  out  that  although  anthropologists  have  very 
seldom  penetrated  far  into  the  realms  of  folklore,  they 
have  frequently  noted  that  the  beliefs  and  customs  of 
savages  find  a  close  parallel  among  peasant  beliefs  and 
practices  in  Europe.  More  than  once  in  the  pages  of 
Sir  John  Lubbock,  Mr.  McLennan,  Dr.  Tylor,  and  others, 
it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  author  turns  aside  from  the 
consideration  of  the  savage  phenomena  he  is  dealing 
with,  to  draw  attention  to  the  close  resemblance  which 
they  bear  to  some  fragments  of  folklore — '  the  series 
ends  as  usual  in  the  folklore  of  the  civilised  world/  are 
Dr.  Tylor's  expressive  words.1 

I  do  not  want  to  lay  too  much  stress  upon  words 
which  may,  perhaps,  be  considered  by  some  to  have  been 
only  a  happy  literary  expression  for  interpreting  an 
isolated  group  of  facts  immediately  under  the  notice  of 
the  author.  But  that  they  are  not  to  be  so  considered, 
and  that  they  convey  a  real  condition  of  things  in  the 
science  of  culture,  may  be  tested  by  an  examination  of 
Dr.  Tylor's  work,  and  I  set  them  forth  in  order  to  fix 
upon  them  as  one  of  the  most  important  axioms  in  folk- 

1  Primitive  Culture,  i.  407. 


10  ETHNOLOGY   IN  FOLKLOEE 

lore  research.  This  axiom  must,  indeed,  be  constantly 
borne  in  mind  as  we  wend  our  way  through  the  various 
items  of  folklore  in  the  following  pages,  and  it  will 
help  to  illustrate  how  much  need  there  is  to  establish 
once  and  for  all  what  place  the  several  groups  of  folk- 
lore occupy  in  the  culture  series. 

This  way  of  expressing  the  relationship  between 
savage  culture  and  folklore  suggests  many  important 
considerations  when  applied  to  a  particular  area.  If 
peasant  culture  and  savage  culture  are  now  at  many 
points  in  close  contact,  how  far  may  we  go  back  to  find 
the  beginning  of  that  contact?  Must  we  not  dig 
down  beneath  each  stratum  of  overlying  higher  cul- 
ture and  remove  all  the  superincumbent  mass  before 
we  can  arrive  at  the  original  layer  ?  There  seems  to 
be  no  other  course  open.  The  forces  that  keep  cer- 
tain beliefs  and  ideas  of  man  in  civilised  countries 
within  the  recognisable  limits  of  savage  culture,  and 
continue  them  in  this  state  generation  after  generation, 
cannot  be  derived  from  the  nature  of  individual  men 
or  women,  or  the  results  would  be  less  systematic  and 
evenly  distributed,  and  would  be  liable  to  disappear 
and  reappear  according  to  circumstances.  They  must 
therefore  act  collectively,  and  must  form  an  essential 
part  of  the  beliefs  and  ideas  which  they  govern. 

I  do  not  know  whether  my  use  of  the  terms  of 
geology  in  the  attempt  to  state  the  position  of  folklore 
in  relationship  to  the  higher  cultures  is  unduly  sugges- 
tive, but  it  undoubtedly  puts  before  the  inquirer  into  the 


SURVIVAL   AND   DEVELOPMENT  11 

origins  of  folklore  the  suggestion  that  the  unnamed 
forces  which  are  so  obviously  present  must  to  a  very 
great  extent  be  identical  with  race.  It  cannot  be  that 
the  fragments  of  rude  and  irrational  practices  in  civi- 
lised countries  arise  from  the  poor  and  peasant  class 
having  been  in  the  habit  of  constantly  borrowing  the 
practices  and  ideas  of  savages,  because,  among  other 
reasons  against  such  a  theory,  this  borrowed  culture 
must  to  a  corresponding  degree  have  displaced  the 
practices  and  ideas  of  civilisation.  All  the  evidence 
goes  to  prove  that  the  peasantry  have  inherited  rude 
and  irrational  practices  and  ideas  from  savage  prede- 
cessors— practices  and  ideas  which  have  never  been 
displaced  by  civilisation.  To  deal  adequately  with 
these  survivals  is  the  accepted  province  of  the  science 
of  folklore,  and  it  must  therefore  account  for  their 
existence,  must  point  out  the  causes  for  their  arrested 
development,  and  the  causes  for  their  long  continuance 
in  a  state  of  crystallisation  or  degradation  after  the 
stoppage  has  been  effected.  And  I  put  it  that  these 
requirements  can  only  be  met  by  an  hypothesis  which 
directly  appeals  to  the  racial  elements  in  the  population. 
There  is  first  the  arresting  force,  identified  with  the 
higher  culture  sweeping  over  the  lower ;  there  is  then 
the  continuing  force,  identified  with  the  lower  culture. 

Let  us  see  how  this  works  out.  The  most  im- 
portant fact  to  note  in  the  examination  of  each  frag- 
ment of  folklore  is  the  point  of  arrested  development. 
Has  the  custom  or  belief,  surviving  by  the  side  of 


12  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

much  higher  culture,  been  arrested  in  its  development 
while  it  was  simply  a  savage  custom  or  belief ;  when 
it  was  a  barbaric  custom  or  belief  at  a  higher  level 
than  savagery;  when  it  was  a  national  custom  or 
belief  discarded  by  the  governing  class  and  obtaining 
locally  ? 

Translating  these  factors  in  the  characteristics  of 
each  item  of  folklore  into  terms  of  ethnology,  it  appears 
that  we  have  at  all  events  sufficient  data  for  considering 
custom  or  belief  which  survives  in  the  savage  form  as 
of  different  ethnic  origin  from  custom  or  belief  which 
survives  in  higher  forms. 

But  if  the  incoming  civilisations  flowing  over 
lower  levels  of  culture  in  any  given  area  have  been 
many,  there  will  be  as  many  stages  of  arrestment  in  the 
folklore  of  that  area,  and  in  so  far  as  each  incoming 
civilisation  represents  an  ethnic  distinction,  the  different 
stages  of  survival  in  folklore  would  also  represent  an 
ethnic  distinction. 

The  incoming  civilisations  in  modern  Europe  are 
not  all  ethnic,  as  the  most  impressive  has  been  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  impossible  for  the  most  casual  reader 
to  have  left  unnoticed  the  frequent  evidence  which  is 
afforded  of  folklore  being  older  than  Christianity — 
having,  in  fact,  been  arrested  in  its  development  by 
Christianity.  But  at  the  back  of  Christianity  the 
incoming  civilisations  have  been  true  ethnic  distinc- 
tions, Scandinavian,  Teutonic,  Roman,  Celtic,  overflow- 
ing each  other,  and  all  of  them  superimposed  upon  the 


SURVIVAL  AND  DEVELOPMENT         18 

original  uncivilisation  of  the  prehistoric  races  of  non- 
Aryan  stock. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  clash  of  these  races  is  still 
represented  in  folklore.  It  is  not  possible  at  the  com- 
mencement of  studies  like  the  present  to  unravel  all 
the  various  elements,  and  particularly  is  it  impossible 
with  our  present  knowledge  to  discriminate  to  any  great 
extent  between  the  several  branches  of  the  Aryan  race.1 
The  biography  of  each  item  of  Aryan  custom  and  belief 
has  not  been  examined  into  like  the  biography  of  each 
word  of  the  Aryan  tongue.  This  will  have  to  be  done 
before  the  work  of  the  comparative  sciences  has  been 
completed.  But  even  with  our  limited  knowledge  of 
Aryan  culture,  it  does  seem  possible  to  mark  in  folk- 
lore traces  of  an  arrested  development  at  the  point 
of  savagery,  side  by  side  with  a  further  development 
which  has  not  been  arrested  until  well  within  the  area 
of  Aryan  culture. 

This  dual  element  in  folklore,  represented  by  a 
series  of  well-marked  inconsistencies  in  peasant  custom 
and  belief,  proves  that  the  stages  of  development  at 
which  the  several  items  of  folklore  have  been  arrested 
are  not  at  the  same  level ;  and  they  could  not  there- 
fore have  been  produced  by  one  arresting  power.  Thus 

1  Miss  Burne  has,  I  think,  successfully  distinguished  between 
Welsh  and  English  origins  in  the  folklore  of  Shropshire  (see  her 
Shropshire  Folklore,  p.  462,  and  the  map).  And  Lord  Teignmouth 
suggested  that  the  prejudice  against  swine  held  by  the  Western  High- 
landers and  Hebrideans  indicates  a  difference  of  race  from  the 
Orcadians,  who  have  no  such  prejudice. — Islands  of  Scotland,  i.  276 


14     .  ETHNOLOGY   IN  FOLKLORE 

the  conflict  between  Paganism  and  Christianity  is  so 
obviously  a  source  to  which  the  phenomenon  of  pagan 
survivals  might  be  traced,  that  almost  exclusive  atten- 
tion has  been  paid  to  it.  It  would  account  for  one  line 
of  arrestment.  It  would  have  stopped  the  further  pro- 
gress of  Aryan  beliefs  and  customs  represented  in  the 
Teutonic,  Celtic,  and  Scandinavian  culture,  and  it  would 
correspondingly  account  for  survivals  at  this  point  of 
arrestment.  Survivals  at  a  point  of  arrestment  further 
back  in  the  development  of  culture  than  the  Aryan 
stage  must  have  already  existed  under  the  pressure  of 
Aryan  culture.  They  must  have  been  produced  by  a 
stoppage  antecedent  to  Christianity,  and  must  be 
identified,  therefore,  with  the  arrival  of  the  Aryan  race 
into  a  country  occupied  by  non-Aryans. 

If,  then,  I  can  show  that  there  are,  primarily,  two 
lines  of  arrested  development  to  be  traced  in  folklore, 
these  two  lines  must  be  represented  the  one  by  savage 
culture,  which  is  not  Aryan,  the  other  by  Aryan  culture. 

It  must,  however,  be  pointed  out  that  the  relation- 
ship between  what  may  be  termed  savagery  and  Aryan 
culture  has  not  been  formally  set  forth,  though  it  seems 
certain  that  there  is  a  considerable  gap  between  the 
two,  caused  by  a  definite  advance  in  culture  by  the 
Aryan  race  before  its  dispersal  from  the  primitive  home. 
This  advance  is  the  result  of  development,  and  where 
development  takes  place  the  originals  from  which  it  has 
proceeded  disappear  in  the  new  forms  thus  produced. 
To  adopt  the  terms  of  the  manufactory,  the  original 


SURVIVAL  AND  DEVELOPMENT  15 

forms  would  have  been  all  used  up  in  the  process  of 
production.  Hence,  none  of  the  savage  culture  from 
which  may  be  traced  the  beginnings  of  Aryan  culture 
can  have  survived  among  Aryan  people.  If  items  of 
it  are  found  to  exist  side  by  side  with  Aryan  culture 
in  any  country,  such  a  phenomenon  must  be  due  to 
causes  which  have  brought  Aryan  and  savage  races 
into  close  dwelling  with  each  other,  and  can  in  no  sense 
be  interpreted  as  original  forms  existing  side  by  side 
with  those  which  have  developed  from  them.  I  put 
this  important  proposition  forward  without  hesitation  as 
a  sound  conclusion  to  be  derived  from  the  study  of 
human  culture.  It  is  not  possible  in  these  pages  to 
give  the  tests  which  I  have  applied  to  prove  it,  because 
they  belong  to  the  statistical  side  of  our  study,  but  I 
adduce  Dr.  Tylor's  notable  attempt  to  work  out  the 
method  of  studying  institutions  as  sufficient  evidence 
for  my  immediate  purpose.1 

These  somewhat  dry  technicalities  are  necessary  in 
order  to  explain  the  basis  of  our  present  inquiry.  Some 
years  ago  Sir  John  Lubbock  said  :  '  It  cannot  be  doubted 
that  the  careful  study  of  manners  and  customs,  tradi- 
tions and.superstitions.  will  eventually  solve  many  diffi- 
cult problems^of  ethnolDgyj  This  mode  of  research, 
however,  requires  to  be  used  with  great  caution,  and 
has,  in  fact,  led  to  many  erroneous  conclusions.  .  .  . 
Much  careful  study  will  therefore  be  required  before 
this  class  of  evidence  can  be  used  with  safety,  though 

1  See  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst. 


16  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

I  doubt  not  that  eventually  it  will  be  found  most  in- 
structive.' l  It  is  singular  what  little  progress  has  been 
made  in  this  branch  of  work  since  this  paragraph  was 
written,  and,  indeed,  how  very  generally  the  subject 
has  been  neglected,  although  now  and  again  a  passage 
in  some  of  our  best  authorities  suggests  the  necessity 
for  some  research  being  undertaken  into  the  question 
of  race  distinctions  in  custom  and  myth.  Mr.  Lang, 
for  instance,  when  asking  how  the  pure  religion  of 
Artemis  had  developed  from  the  cult  of  a  ravening  she- 
bear,  puts  the  case  forcibly  thus  :  '  Here  is  a  moment 
in  mythical  and  religious  evolution  which  almost  escapes 
inquiry.  .  .  .  How  did  the  complex  theory  of  the  nature 
of  Artemis  arise  ?  What  was  its  growth  ?  At  what 
precise  hour  did  it  emancipate  itself  on  the  whole  from 
the  lower  savage  creeds  ?  Or  how  was  it  developed  out 
of  their  unpromising  materials  ?  The  science  of  my- 
thology may  perhaps  never  find  a  key  to  these  obscure 
problems.' 2  But  I  think  the  science  of  folklore  may  go 
far  towards  the  desired  end.  Its  course  would  be  to 
take  note  of  the  points  of  arrested  development,  and  to 
classify  what  has  survived  in  the  savage  stage  and  what 

1  Origin  of  Civilisation,  p.  4.  Dalyell,  in  some  of  his  acute  obser- 
vations on  superstition,  says  that  he  thought '  it  might  be  possible  to 
connect  the  modern  inhabitants  of  Scotland  with  the  ancient  tribes 
of  other  countries,  and  to  trace  their  descent  through  the  medium 
of  superstitions.' — Darker  Superstitions  of  Scotland,  p.  236.  In 
1836,  when  this  book  was  published,  this  way  of  putting  the  relation- 
ship of  one  people  with  another  had  not  been  abolished  by  the  work 
accomplished  by  anthropology. 

*  Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion,  ii.  215. 


SURVIVAL  AND   DEVELOPMENT  17 

is  represented  in  the  higher  stages  as  being  of  two 
distinct  ethnic  origins,  and  its  conclusion  would  be  that 
Artemis  '  succeeded  to  and  threw  her  protection  over 
an  ancient  worship  of  the  animal,'  aod  that  therefore 
the  cult  of  Artemis  and  the  local  cults  connected  with 
it  are  as  to  race  of  different  origin,  and  may  both  be 
called  Greek  in  reference  only  to  their  final  state  of 
amalgamation  in  the  land  which  the  Aryan  Greeks 
conquered  and  named. 

One  of  the  principal  features  of  the  Artemis  cult  is 
the  extremely  savage  form  of  some  of  the  local  rituals, 
and  it  will  frequently  be  found  that  localities  preserve 
relics  of  a  people  much  older  than  those  who  now  inhabit 
them.  Thus  the  daubing  of  the  bridegroom's  feet  with 
soot  in  Scotland,1  the  painting  with  black  substance  of 
one  of  the  characters  in  the  Godiva  ride  at  Southam  in 
Warwickshire,2  the  daubing  of  the  naked  body  in  the 
Dionysiac  mysteries  of  the  Greeks,  are  explained  by 
none  of  the  requirements  of  civilisation,  but  by  practices 
to  be  found  in  Africa  and  elsewhere.  The  ancestry  of 
the  Scottish,  Warwickshire,  and  Greek  customs,  there- 
fore, may  be  traced  back  to  a  people  on  the  level  of 
culture  with  African  savages. 

But  when  we  come  to  ask  who  were  the  people 
who  introduced  this  savage  custom,  we  are  for  the  first 
time  conscious  of  the  important  question  of  race.  Are 

1  Gregor,  Folklore  of  North-east  Scotland,^.  90;  Rogers,  Social 
Life  in  Scotland,  i.  110. 

2  Hartland,  Science  of  Fairy  Tales,  p.  85. 

0 


18  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

we  compelled  to  call  them  Scotchmen,  Englishmen,  or 
Greek?  Mr.  Lang  and  Mr.  Frazer  would,  I  believe, 
answer  '  Yes  ' ; '  and  they  are  followed,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, by  all  other  folklorists.  I  shall  attempt  a 
somewhat  different  answer,  the  construction  and  proof 
of  which  will  occupy  the  following  pages.  But  as  a 
preliminary  justification  for  such  a  course  I  quote  Mr. 
Tylor's  warning :  '  The  evidence  of  locality  may  be  mis- 
leading as  to  race.  A  traveller  in  Greenland  coming 
on  the  ruined  stone  buildings  at  Kakortok  would  not 
argue  justly  that  the  Esquimaux  are  degenerate  de- 
scendants of  ancestors  capable  of  such  architecture,  for, 
in  fact,  these  are  the  remains  of  a  church  and  baptistry 
built  by  the  ancient  Scandinavian  settlers.'2  Exactly. 
The  long-chambered  barrows,  hill  earthworks  and  culti- 
vation sites,  cave  dwellings  and  palaeolithic  implements, 
are  not  attributable  to  Celt  or  Teuton.  Can  we,  then, 
without  substantial  reason  and  without  special  inquiry, 
say  that  a  custom  or  belief,  however  rude  and  savage, 
is  Celtic,  or  Teutonic,  or  Greek,  simply  because  it  is 
extant  in  a  country  occupied  in  historic  times  by  people 
speaking  the  language  of  any  of  these  peoples  ? 

A  negative  answer  must  clearly  be  returned  to  this 
question.  The  subject,  no  doubt,  is  a  difficult  one 
when  thought  of  in  connection  with  European  countries. 
But  in  India,  less  levelled  by  civilisation  than  the  western 
world,  the  ethnographer,  with  very  little  effort,  can 

1  Consult  Mr.  Lang's  Custom  and  Myth,  p.  26. 
•  Primitive  Culture,  i.  51 


SURVIVAL  AND  DEVELOPMENT  19 

detect  ethnic  distinctions  in  custom  and  belief.  Stone 
worship  in  India,  for  instance,  is  classed  by  Dr.  Tylor 
as  '  a  survival  of  a  rite  belonging  originally  to  a  low 
civilisation,  probably  a  rite  of  the  rude  indigenes  of 
the  land.' !  But  are  not  survivals  of  stone  worship  in 
Europe  similarly  to  be  classed  as  belonging  to  the  rude 
indigenes  of  the  land  ?  The  log  that  stood  for  Artemis 
in  Euboea,  the  stake  that  represented  Pallas  Athene, 
the  unwrought  stone  at  Hyettos  which  represented 
Herakles,  the  thirty  stones  which  the  Pharseans  wor- 
shipped for  the  gods,  and  the  stone  representing  the 
Thespian  Eros,  may,  with  equal  propriety,  be  classed 
as  survivals  of  the  non-Aryan  indigenes  of  Greece. 
What  may  be  rejected  as  belonging  to  the  Aryans 
of  India  because  there  is  distinct  evidence  of  its  be- 
longing to  the  non- Aryans,  cannot  be  accepted  with- 
out even  an  inquiry  as  belonging  to  the  Aryans  of 
Greece.  No  doubt  the  difficulty  of  tracing  direct  evi- 
dence of  the  early  non- Aryan  races  of  Europe  is  very 
great,  but  it  is  no  way  out  of  the  difficulty  to  ignore 
the  fact  that  there  exist  survivals  of  savage  culture 
which  would  readily  be  classified  as  non- Aryan  if  it  so 
happened  that  there  now  existed  certain  tribes  of  non- 
Aryan  people  to  whom  they  might  be  allotted.  .Qn  the 
contrary,  the  existence-  of  survivals  of  savage  culture  is 
primd  facie  evidence  of  the  existence  of  races  to  whom 
this  culture  belonged  and  from  whom  it  has  descended. 
I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  in  all  places  where  items 

1  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  150. 

c  2 


20  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

of  non- Aryan  culture  have  survived  people  of  non- Aryan 
race  have  survived.  Old  races  disappear  while  old  cus- 
toms last — carried  on  by  successors,  but  not  necessarily 
by  descendants.  The  genealogy  of  folklore  carries  us 
back  to  the  race  of  people  from  whom  it  derives  its 
parentage,  but  it  does  not  necessarily  carry  back  the 
genealogy  of  modern  peasantry  to  the  same  race.  This 
latter  part  of  the  question  is  a  matter  for  ethnologists 
to  deal  with,  and  it  may  be  that  some  unlooked-for 
results  are  yet  to  be  derived  from  a  close  study  of  ethnic 
types  in  our  local  populations  in  relation  to  the  folklore 
preserved  by  them. 


21 


CHAPTER   II 

ETHNIC   ELEMENTS   IX   CUSTOM   AND   RITUAL 

IT  is  necessary  now  to  test  by  the  evidence  of  actual 
example  the  hypothesis  that  race  distinction  is  the  true 
explanation  of  the  strange  inconsistency  which  is  met 
with  in  folklore.  There  should  be  evidence  somewhere, 
if  such  a  hypothesis  is  tenable,  that  the  almost 
unchecked  conclusions  of  scholars  are  not  correct  when 
they  argue  that  because  a  custom  or  belief,  however 
savage  and  rude,  obtained  in  Rome  or  in  Greece,  in 
German  or  Celtic  countries  of  modern  Europe,  it  is 
Roman,  Greek,  German,  or  Celtic  throughout  all  its 
variations. 

For  this  purpose  an  example  must  be  found  which 
will  comply  with  certain  conditions.  It  must  obtain  in 
a  country  over-lorded  by  an  Aryan  people,  and  still 
occupied  by  non- Aryan  indigenes.  It  must  consist  of 
distinct  divisions,  showing  the  part  taken  by  Aryans  and 
the  part  taken  by  non- Aryans.  And  as  such  an  example 
can  scarcely  be  found  in  Europe,  it  must  at  least  be 
paralleled  in  the  folklore  of  Europe,  if  not  in  all  its  con- 
stituent parts,  at  all  events  in  all  the  essential  details. 

Such  an  example  is  to  be  found  in  India.     I  shall 


22  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

first  of  all  set  forth  the  principal  points  which  are 
necessary  to  note  in  this  example  in  the  words,  as  nearly 
as  possible,  of  the  authority  I  quote,  so  that  the  com- 
ments which  it  will  be  necessary  to  make  upon  it  may 
not  interfere  with  the  evidence  as  it  stands  originally 
recorded. 

The  festival  of  the  village  goddess  is  honoured 
throughout  all  Southern  India  and  in  other  parts,  from 
Berar  to  the  extreme  east  of  Bustar  and  in  Mysore. 
She  is  generally  adored  in  the  form  of  an  unshapely 
stone  covered  with  vermilion.  A  small  altar  is  erected 
behind  the  temple  of  the  village  goddess  to  a  rural  god 
named  P6traj.  All  the  members  of  the  village  com- 
munity take  part  in  the  festival,  with  the  hereditary 
district  officers,  many  of  them  Brahmins. 

An  examination  of  the  ritual  belonging  to  this 
village  festival  enables  ns  not  only  to  detect  the  pre- 
sence of  race  distinctions  and  of  practices  which  belong 
to  them,  but  compels  us  to  conclude  that  the  whole 
ceremony  originated  in  race  distinctions. 

The  festival  is  under  the  guidance  and  manage- 
ment of  the  Farias,  who  act  as  officiating  priests.  With 
them  are  included  the  Mangs  or  workers  in  leather,  the 
Asadis  or  Dasaris,  Paria  dancing-girls  devoted  to  the 
service  of  the  temple,  the  musician  in  attendance  on 
them,  who  acts  as  a  sort  of  jester  or  buffoon,  and  a  func- 
tionary called  Potraj,  who  officiates  as  pujari  to  the  god 
of  the  same  name.  The  shepherds  or  Dhangars  of  the 
neighbouring  villages  are  also  invited.  Of  these  the 


ETHNIC   ELEMENTS   IN   CUSTOM  AND   RITUAL       23 

Farias  are  an  outcast  people,  degraded  in  the  extreme, 
and  always  excluded  from  the  village  and  from  contact 
with  the  inhabitants.  They  are  identified  with  the 
Paraya,  a  southern  aboriginal  tribe  nearly  allied  to  the 
Gonds.  The  shepherd  caste  is  found  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  the  Dekhan  in  detached  communities, 
called  Kurumbars,  Kurubars,  and  Dhangars  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  India.  These  are  the  non- Aryan  races 
who  take  part  in  this  Aryan  village  festival ;  they  occupy 
the  foremost  place  during  the  festival,  and  at  its  termi- 
nation they  retire  to  their  hamlets  outside  the  town  and 
resume  their  humble  servile  character.  From  these 
facts  Sir  W.  Elliot  has  deduced  as  probable  conclusions 
that  the  earliest  known  inhabitants  of  Southern  India 
were  an  aboriginal  race,  who  worshipped  local  divinities, 
the  tutelary  gods  of  earth,  hill,  grove,  and  boundaries,  &c., 
and  that  this  worship  has  been  blended  in  practice  with 
that  of  the  Aryan  overlords. 

The  principal  parts  of  the  ritual  which  it  is  useful  for 
us  to  note  are  as  follows.  The  Potraj  priest  was  armed 
with  a  long  whip,  to  which  at  various  parts  of  the  cere- 
mony divine  honours  were  paid.  The  sacred  buffalo  was 
turned  loose  when  a  calf,  and  allowed  to  feed  and  roam 
about  the  village.  On  the  second  day  this  animal  was 
thrown  down  before  the  goddess,  its  head  struck  off  by 
a  single  blow,  and  placed  in  front  of  the  shrine  with  one 
foreleg  thrust  into  its  mouth.  Around  were  placed 
vessels  containing  the  different  cereals,  and  hard  by  a 
heap  of  mixed  grains  with  a  drill-plough  in  the  centre. 


24  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

The  carcase  was  then  cut  up  into  small  pieces,  and 
each  cultivator  received  a  portion  to  bury  in  his  field. 
The  blood  and  offal  were  collected  into  a  large  basket 
over  which  some  pots  of  cooked  food  had  previously  been 
broken,  and  P6traj,  taking  a  live  kid,  hewed  it  to  pieces 
over  the  whole.  The  mess  was  then  mixed  together, 
and  the  basket  being  placed  on  the  head  of  a  naked 
Mang,  he  ran  off  with  it,  flinging  the  contents  into  the 
air  and  scattering  them  right  and  left  as  an  offering 
to  the  evil  spirits,  and  followed  by  the  other  Farias. 
The  whole  party  made  the  circuit  of  the  village. 

The  third  and  fourth  days  were  devoted  to  private 
offerings.  On  the  former,  all  the  inhabitants  of  caste 
who  had  vowed  animals  to  the  goddess  during  the  pre- 
ceding three  years  for  the  welfare  of  their  families  or 
the  fertility  of  their  fields  brought  the  buffaloes  or  sheep 
to  the  Paria  pujari,  who  struck  off  their  heads.  The 
fourth  day  is  appropriated  exclusively  to  the  offerings  of 
the  Parias.  In  this  way  some  fifty  or  sixty  buffaloes 
and  several  hundred  sheep  were  slain,  and  the  heads 
piled  up  in  two  great  heaps.  Many  women  on  these 
days  walked  naked  to  the  temple  in  fulfilment  of  vows, 
but  they  were  covered  with  leaves  and  boughs  of  trees, 
and  surrounded  by  their  female  relations  and  friends. 

On  the  fifth  and  last  day  the  whole  community 
marched  in  procession  with  music  to  the  temple,  and 
offered  a  concluding  sacrifice  at  the  Potraj  altar.  .  A 
lamb  was  concealed  close  by.  The  Potraj  having  found 
it  after  a  pretended  search,  struck  it  simply  with  his 


ETHNIC   ELEMENTS   IN   CUSTOM  AND   RITUAL       25 

whip,  which  he  then  placed  upon  it,  and  making  several 
passes  with  his  hands  rendered  it  insensible.  His  hands 
were  then  tied  behind  his  back  by  the  pujari,  and  the 
whole  party  began  to  dance  round  him  with  noisy  shouts. 
Potraj  joined  in  the  excitement,  and  he  soon  came  fully 
under  the  influence  of  the  deity.  He  was  led  up,  still 
bound,  to  the  place  where  the  lamb  lay  motionless.  He 
rushed  at  it,  seized  it  with  his  teeth,  tore  through  the  skin, 
and  ate  into  its  throat.  When  it  was  quite  dead  he  was 
lifted  up,  a  dishful  of  the  meat-offering  was  presented 
to  him  ;  he  thrust  his  bloody  face  into  it,  and  it  was 
then  with  the  remains  of  the  lamb  buried  beside  the 
altar.  Meantime  his  hands  were  untied  and  he  fled  the 
place. 

The  rest  of  the  party  now  adjourned  to  the  front  of 
the  temple,  where  the  heap  of  grain  deposited  the  first 
day  was  divided  among  all  the  cultivators,  to  be  buried 
by  each  one  in  his  field  with  the  bit  of  flesh.  After 
this  a  distribution  of  the  piled-up  heads  was  made  by  the 
hands  of  the  musician  or  Raniga.  About  forty  sheep's 
heads  were  given  to  certain  privileged  persons,  among 
which  two  were  allotted  to  the  sircar.  For  the  rest  a 
general  scramble  took  place,  paiks,  shepherds,  Farias, 
and  many  boys  and  men  of  good  caste  were  soon  rolling 
in  the  mass  of  putrid  gore.  The  scramble  for  the  buffalo 
heads  was  confined  to  the  Farias.  Whoever  was  fortu- 
nate enough  to  secure  one  of  either  kind  carried  it  off 
and  buried  it  in  his  field. 

The  proceedings  terminated  by  a  procession  round 


26  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 

the  boundaries  of  the  village  lands,  preceded  by  the 
goddess  and  the  head  of  the  sacred  buffalo  carried  on 
the  head  of  one  of  the  Mangs.  All  order  and  propriety 
now  ceased.  Raniga  began  to  abuse  the  goddess  in  the 
foulest  language,  he  then  turned  his  fury  against  the 
Government,  the  head  man  of  the  village,  and  everyone 
who  fell  in  his  way.  The  Farias  and  Asddis  attacked 
the  most  respectable  and  gravest  citizens,  and  laid  hold 
of  Brahmins,  Lingayats,  and  zamindars  without  scruple. 
The  dancing-women  jumped  on  their  shoulders,  the 
shepherds  beat  the  big  drum,  and  universal  license  pre- 
vailed. 

On  reaching  a  little  temple  sacred  to  the  goddess  of 
boundaries  they  halted  to  make  some  offerings  and  to 
bury  the  sacred  head.  As  soon  as  it  was  covered  the 
uproar  began  again.  Raniga  became  more  foul-mouthed 
than  ever,  and  the  head  men,  the  Government  officers, 
and  others  tried  to  pacify  him  by  giving  him  small 
copper  coins.  This  went  on  till,  the  circuit  being  com- 
pleted, all  dispersed.1 

It  has  been  worth  while  transcribing  here  this 
elaborate  description  of  a  veritable  folk  drama  because 
it  is  necessary  to  have  before  us  the  actual  details  of  the 
ritual  observed  and  the  beliefs  expressed  before  we  can 
properly  attempt  a  comparison. 

We  must  now  ascertain  how  far  European  folklore 
tallies  with  the  ceremonies  observed  in  this  Indian 
village  festival.  If  there  is  a  strong  line  of  parallel 

1  Sir  W.  Elliot  in  Journ.  Ethnological  Soc.  N.S.  i.  97-100. 


ETHNIC  ELEMENTS  IN  CUSTOM  AND  KITUAL       27 

between  the  Indian  ceremonies  and  some  ceremonies 
still  observed  in  Europe  as  survivals  of  a  forgotten  and 
unrecognised  cult,  I  shall  argue  that  ceremonies  which 
are  demonstrably  non-Aryan  in  India,  even  in  the 
presence  of  Aryan  people,  must  in  origin  have  been 
non- Aryan  in  Europe,  though  the  race  from  whom  they 
have  descended  is  not  at  present  identified  by  ethno- 
logists. 

I  shall  not  at  this  juncture  dwell  upon  the  unshapen 
stone  which  represented  the  goddess.  Its  parallels 
exist  throughout  the  whole  range  of  early  religions, 
and,  as  we  have  already  seen,  appear  in  the  folklore  of 
Europe.  As  the  Kafirs  of  India  say  of  the  stones  they 
use,  '  This  stands  for  God,  but  we  know  not  his  shape.'  l 
All  the  more  need  for  it  to  be  unshapen  by  men's  hands, 
and  the  history  of  the  sacred  use  of  monoliths  com- 
mences at  this  point2  and  ends  with  the  sculptured 
glories  of  Greece.3  Later  on  some  special  forms  of 
stone  deities  will  be  noticed ;  it  is  the  use  of  a  stone 
as  a  sort  of  altar  of  the  goddess,  who  is  not  identical 
with  it,  and  the  recognition  of  stone  worship  as  a  part 
of  the  aboriginal  cult,  and  not  Aryan,4  which  interests 
us  now. 

This  stone  is  the  place  of  sacrifice  to  the  harvest 

1  Latham,  Descriptive  Ethnology,  ii.  240. 

2  Cf.  Kobertson  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,pp.  186-195  ;  Ellis, 
Erve-speaMng  People,  p.  28. 

3  See  an  able  article  in  fheArchceological  Review,  ii.  167-184,  by 
Mr.  Farnell. 

4  Arch.  Survey  of  India,  xvii.  141, 


28  ETHNOLOGY  TN  FOLKLORE 

goddess,  and  the  ceremonial  observed  at  the  Indian 
festival  directs  us  at  once  to  the  local  observances  con- 
nected with  the  cult  of  Dionysus.  The  Cretans  in  re- 
presenting the  sufferings  and  death  of  Dionysus  tore  a 
bull  to  pieces  with  their  teeth  ;  indeed,  says  Mr.  Frazer, 
quoting  the  authority  of  Euripides,  the  rending  and 
devouring  of  live  bulls  and  calves  appear  to  have  been 
a  regular  feature  of  the  Dionysiac  rites,  and  his  wor- 
shippers also  rent  in  pieces  a  live  goat  and  devoured  it 
raw.  At  Tenedos  the  new-born  calf  sacrificed  to  the 
god  was  shod  in  buskins,  and  the  mother  cow  was 
tended  like  a  woman  in  child-bed — sure  proof  of  the 
symbolisation  of  human  sacrifice,  which  indeed  actually 
took  place  at  Chios  and  at  Orchomenus.1  These  are 
virtually  the  same  practices  as  those  now  going  on  in 
India,  and  the  identification  is  confirmed  by  the  facts 
(1)  that  Dionysus  is  sometimes  represented  to  his  wor- 
shippers by  his  head  only — a  counterpart  of  the  sacred 
character  of  the  head  in  the  Indian  rites ;  (2)  that  the 
sacrificer  of  the  calf  at  Tenedos  was,  after  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  rite,  driven  out  from  the  place  and 
stoned — a  counterpart  of  the  Potraj  fleeing  the  place 
after  the  sacrifice  of  the  lamb  in  the  Indian  ceremony  ; 
and  (3)  that  the  female  worshippers  of  Dionysus  attended 
in  a  nude  state,  crowned  with  garlands,  and  their  bodies 
daubed  over  with  clay  and  dirt — a  counterpart  of  the 

1  Mr.  Frazer  has  collected  all  the  references  to  these  facts  in 
his  Golden  Bough,  i.  326-329  ;  see  also  Lang,  Custom  and  Myth,  ii. 
231-234. 


ETHNIC   ELEMENTS   IN   CUSTOM  AND   EITUAL       29 

female  votaries  who   attended   naked  and    surrounded 
with  branches  of  trees  at  the  Indian  festival. 

I  have  selected  this  cult  of  the  Greeks  for  the 
purpose  of  comparing  it  with  the  non- Aryan  cere- 
monial of  India,  because  it  has  recently  been  examined 
with  all  the  wealth  of  illustration  and  comparison  by 
two  such  great  authorities  as  Mr.  Lang  and  Mr.  Frazer. 
They  have  stripped  it  of  most  of  the  fanciful  surround- 
ings with  which  German  and  English  mythologists  have 
recently  loaded  it,  and  once  more  restored  the  local 
rituals  and  the  central  myth  as  the  true  sources  from 
which  to  obtain  information  as  to  its  origin.  At  almost 
every  point  the  details  of  the  local  rituals  are  compar- 
able, not  to  Greek  conceptions  of  Dionysus,  '  a  youth 
with  clusters  of  golden  hair  and  in  his  dark  eyes  the 
grace  of  Aphrodite/  but  to  the  ferocious  and  barbaric 
practices  of  savages.  Then  where  is  the  evidence  of 
the  Greek  origin  of  these  local  observances?  Greek 
religious  thought  was  far  in  advance  of  them.  It 
stooped  to  admit  them  within  the  rites  of  the  god 
Dionysus,  but  in  this  act  there  was  a  conscious 
borrowing  by  Greeks  of  something  lower  in  the  stage 
of  culture  than  Greek  culture,  and  that  something  has 
been  characterised  by  a  recent  commentator  as  appertain- 
ing to  '  the  divinities  of  the  common  people.' l  This  is 

1  Dyer's  (rod*  of  Greece,  p.  123.  Mr.  Dyer  says  :  '  The  most  pains- 
taking scrutiny,  the  minutest  examination  of  such  evidence  as  may 
be  had,  will  never  disentangle  completely,  never  make  perfectly 
plain,  just  what  elements  constituted  the  Dionysus  first  worshipped 
in  early  Greece.  His  character  was  composite  from  the  moment 


30  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

very  near  to  the  race  distinction  I  am  in  search  of.  The 
common  people  of  Crete,  Tenedos,  Chios,  and  Orchome- 
nus  were  not  necessarily  Aryan  Greeks,  and,  judged  by 
their  savage  customs,  they  most  likely  stood  in  the  same 
relationship  to  the  Aryans  of  Greece  as  the  Farias  of 
the  Indian  villages  stand  to  their  Aryan  overlords. 

I  pass  from  Greek  folklore  to  English.  It  would  be 
easy  to  extend  research  right  across  Europe,  especially 
with  Mr.  Frazer's  aid,  but  it  is  scarcely  necessary.  A 
Whitsuntide  custom  in  the  parish  of  King's  Teignton, 
Devonshire,  is  thus  described  :  A  lamb  is  drawn  about 
the  parish  on  Whitsun  Monday  in  a  cart  covered  with 
garlands  of  lilac,  laburnum,  and  other  flowers,  when 
persons  are  requested  to  give  something  towards  the 
animal  and  attendant  expenses ;  on  Tuesday  it  is  then 
killed  and  roasted  whole  in  the  middle  of  the  village. 
The  lamb  is  then  sold  in  slices  to  the  poor  at  a  cheap 
rate.  The  origin  of  the  custom  is  forgotten,  but  a 
tradition,  supposed  to  trace  back  to  heathen  days,  is  to 
this  effect :  The  village  suffered  from  a  dearth  of  water, 
when  the  inhabitants  were  advised  by  their  priests  to 


Greeks  worshipped  him ;  for  in  Bceotia  (Hesychius)  as  in  Attica 
(Pausanias,  xxxi.  4)  and  in  Naxos  (Athenaeus,  iii.  78)  some  part 
of  him  was  native  to  the  soil,  and  he  was  nowhere  wholly  Thra- 
cian.' — Gods  of  Greece,  p.  82.  Mr.  Dyer  had  probably  not  studied 
Mr.  Frazer's  book  when  this  passage  was  written,  but  it  shows 
the  opinions  of  specialists  who  have  not  called  in  the  aid  of  ethno- 
logy. That  part  of  Dionysus  which  was  '  native  to  the  soil '  was 
not  Greek ;  the  Greeks  were  immigrants  to  the  land  they  adorned  as 
their  home,  and  the  Dionysus  '  native  to  the  soil '  was  shaped  by 
them  into  the  Athenian  Dionysus. 


ETHNIC   ELEMENTS   IN   CUSTOM   AND  KITUAL      31 

pray  to  the  gods  for  water ;  whereupon  the  water  sprang 
up  spontaneously  in  a  meadow"  about  a  third  of  a  mile 
above  the  river,  in  an  estate  now  called  Rydon,  amply 
sufficient  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  place,  and  at  pre- 
sent adequate,  even  in  a  dry  summer,  to  work  three 
mills.  A  lamb,  it  is  said,  has  ever  since  that  time  been 
sacrificed  as  a  votive  thankoffering  at  Whitsuntide  in 
the  manner  before  mentioned.  The  said  water  appears 
like  a  large  pond,  from  which  in  rainy  weather  may  be 
seen  jets  springing  up  some  inches  above  the  surface 
in  many  parts.  It  has  ever  had  the  name  of  '  Fair 
Water.' l  It  is  noticeable  that,  while  the  custom  here 
described  does  not  present  any  very  extraordinary 
features,  the  popular  legend  concerning  its  origin  in- 
troduces two  very  important  elements — namely,  its 
reference  to  '  heathen  days,'  and  the  title  of  '  sacrifice  ' 
ascribed  to  the  killing  of  the  lamb.  The  genealogy  of 
this  custom,  then,  promises  to  take  us  back  to  the  era 
of  heathen  sacrifice  of  animals. 

The  first  necessity  in  tracing  the  genealogy  is  to 
analyse  the  custom  as  it  obtains  in  nineteenth-century 
Devonshire.  The  analysis  gives  the  following  results  : — 

1.  The  decoration  of  the  victim  lamb  with  garlands. 

2.  The   killing   and    roasting    of    the    victim    by 
villagers. 

3.  The  place  of  the  ceremony  in  the  middle  of  the 
village. 

4.  The  selling  of  the  roasted  flesh  to  the  poor. 

1  Notes  and  Queries,  vii.  363. 


32  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

x.  The  traditional  origin  of  the  custom  as  a  sacrifice 
for  water.  • 

It  seems  clear  that  between  the  fourth  step  of  the 
analysis  and  the  traditional  origin  there  are  some  con- 
siderable lacunae  to  be  filled  up  which  prevent  us  at 
present  from  numbering  the  last  item.  The  more  primi- 
tive elements  of  this  custom  have  been  worn  down  to 
vanishing  point,  the  practice  probably  being  considered 
but  an  old-fashioned  and  cumbrous  method  of  relieving 
distressed  parishioners  before  the  poor  law  had  otherwise 
provided  for  them.  Another  example  from  Devonshire 
fortunately  overlaps  this  one,  and  permits  the  restora- 
tion of  the  lost  elements,  and  the  consequent  carrying 
back  of  the  genealogy. 

At  the  village  of  Holne,  situated  on  one  of  the  spurs 
of  Dartmoor,  is  a  field  of  about  two  acres,  the  property 
of  the  parish,  and  called  the  Ploy  Field.  In  the  centre 
of  this  field  stands  a  granite  pillar  (Menhir)  six  or  seven 
feet  high.  On  May-morning,  before  daybreak,  the 
young  men  of  the  village  used  to  assemble  there,  and 
then  proceed  to  the  moor,  where  they  selected  a  ram 
lamb,  and,  after  running  it  down,  brought  it  in  triumph 
to  the  Ploy  Field,  fastened  it  to  the  pillar,  cut  its  throat, 
and  then  roasted  it  whole,  skin,  wool,  &c.  At  midday 
a  struggle  took  place,  at  the  risk  of  cut  hands,  for  a 
slice,  it  being  supposed  to  confer  luck  for  the  ensuing 
year  on  the  fortunate  devourer.  As  an  act  of  gallantry 
the  young  men  sometimes  fought  their  way  through  the 
crowd  to  get  a  slice  for  the  chosen  amongst  the  young 
women,  all  of  whom,  in  their  best  dresses,  attended  the 


ETHNIC   ELEMENTS   IN   CUSTOM  AND   RITUAL       33 

Ram  Feast,  as  it  was  called.  Dancing,  wrestling,  and 
other  games,  assisted  by  copious  libations  of  cider  during 
the  afternoon,  prolonged  the  festivity  till  midnight.1 

Analysing  this  example,  and  keeping  to  the  notation 
of  the  first  analysis,  we  have  the  following  results  : — 

2.  The  killing  and  roasting  of  the  victim  ram  by 
villagers. 

3.  The  place  of  the  ceremony,  at  a  stone  pillar  in  a 
field  which  is  common  property. 

4.  The  struggle  for  pieces  of  raw  flesh  '  at  the  risk 
of  cut  hands.' 

5.  The  time  of  the  ceremony,  before  daybreak. 

6.  The  luck  conferred  by  the  possession  of  a  slice  of 
the  flesh. 

7.  The  festivities  attending  the  ceremony. 

Thus,  of  the  five  elements  in  the  King's  Teignton 
custom,  three  are  retained  in  the  Holne  custom,  and 
three  additional  ones  of  importance  are  added. 

I  think  we  may  conclude,  first,  that  the  Holne  cus- 
tom is  a  more  primitive  form  of  a  common  original  from 
which  both  have  descended ;  secondly,  that  we  may 
strike  out  the  '  roasting  '  as  an  entirely  civilised  element 
due  to  modern  influences.  The  final  form  of  the 
analysis  might  then  be  restored  from  the  two  fragmen- 
tary ones  as  follows  : — 

1  Notes  and  Queries,  1st  ser.  vii.  353.  Compare  Robertson 
Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  320,  and  Owen,  Notes  on  the  Naga 
Tribes,  pp.  15-16,  for  some  remarkable  parallels  to  this  Devonshire 
custom.  I  would  also  refer  to  Miss  Burne's  suggestive  description 
of  the  bull  sacrifice  in  her  Shropshire  Folklore,  p.  475. 

D 


84  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

1.  The  decoration  of  the  victim  with  garlands. 

2.  The  killing  of  the  victim  by  the  community. 

3.  The  place  of  the  ceremony,  on  lands  belonging  to 
the  community,  and  at  a  stone  pillar. 

4.  The  struggle  for  pieces  of  flesh  by  members  of 
the  community. 

5.  The  time  of  the  ceremony,  before  daybreak. 

6.  The  sacred  power  of  the  piece  of  flesh. 

7.  The  festivities  attending  the  ceremony. 

8.  The  origin  of  the  ceremony,  as  a  sacrifice  to  the 
god  of  waters. 

The  obvious  analogy  this  bears  to  the  Indian  type 
we  are  examining  scarcely  needs  to  be  insisted  on,  and 
I  shall  leave  it  to  take  its  place  among  the  group  of 
European  parallels. 

The  special  sanctity  of  the  head  of  the  sacrificed 
victim,  so  apparent  in  the  Indian  festival,  appears  in 
European  paganism  and  folklore  in  several  places.1  The 
Langobards  adored  a  divinely  honoured  goat's  head.2  A 
well-known  passage  in  Tacitus,  describing  the  sacred 
groves  of  the  Germans,  states  that  the  heads  of  the 
animals  hung  on  boughs  of  trees,  or,  as  it  is  noted  in 
another  passage,  'immolati  diis  equi  abscissum  caput.' 
Heathendom,  says  Grimm,  seems  to  have  practised  all 
sorts  of  magic  by  cutting  off  horses'  heads  and  sticking 
them  up,3  and  he  quotes  examples  from  Scandinavia, 

1  Compare  Robertson  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  pp.   359, 
362. 

2  Grimm,  Teutonic  Myth.  p.  31.  3  Ibid.  p.  659. 


ETHNIC   ELEMENTS  IN  CUSTOM  AND  EITUAL      35 

Germany,  and  Holland.  Passing  on  to  folklore,  we  find 
that  the  witches  of  Germany  in  the  thirteenth  century 
were  accused  of  adoring  a  beast's  head.1  A  fox's  head 
was  nailed  to  the  stable  door  in  some  parts  of  Scotland 
to  bar  the  entrance  of  witches.2  Carnden  has  noted  a 
curious  ceremony  obtaining  at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  I 
have  heard,  he  says,  that  the  stag  which  the  family  of  Le 
Baud  in  Essex  was  bound  to  pay  for  certain  lands  used 
to  be  received  at  the  steps  of  the  church  by  the  priests 
in  their  sacerdotal  robes  and  with  garlands'  of  flowers 
on  their  heads ;  and  as  a  boy  he  saw  a  stag's  head  fixed  on 
a  spear  and  conveyed  about  within  the  church  with  great 
solemnity  and  sounds  of  horns.3  At  Hornchurch,  in 
Essex,  a  singular  ceremony  is  recorded.  The  lessee  of 
the  tithes  supplies  a  boar's  head,  dressed,  and  garnished 
with  bay-leaves.  In  the  afternoon  of  Christmas  Day  it 
is  carried  in  procession  into  the  field  adjoining  the 
churchyard,  where  it  is  wrestled  for.4 

These  customs  are  also  confirmed  by  the  records  of 
archaeology.  In  the  belfry  of  Elsdon  Church,  North- 
umberland, were  discovered  in  1877  the  skeletons  of 
three  horses'  heads.  They  were  in  a  small  chamber, 
evidently  formed  to  receive  them,  and  the  spot  was  the 
highest  part  of  the  church ;  they  were  piled  one  against 

1  Grimm,  Teutonic  Myth.  p.  1065. 

-  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitions  of  Scotland,  p.  148. 

3  Britannia,  Holland's  translation,  p.  426. 

4  Notes  and   Queries,  1st  Ser.  v.  106 ;    Gentleman's  Magazine 
Library — Manners  and  Customs,  p.  221.     It  is  also  curious  to  note 
that  leaden  horns  are  fastened  over  the  east  part  of  the  church. 

D  2 


36  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOEE 

the  other  in  a  triangular  form,  the  jaws  being  upper- 
most.1 

I  will  not  do  more  than  say  that  these  items  of  folk- 
lore, following  those  which  relate  to  the  sacrifice  of  the 
animal,  confirm  the  parallel  which  is  being  sought  for  be- 
tween the  living  ceremonial  of  Indian  festivals  and  the 
surviving  peasant  custom  in  European  folklore,  and  I  pass 
on  from  the  victims  of  the  sacrifice  to  the  actors  in  the 
scene.  All  the  latent  savagery  exhibited  in  the  action 
of  tearing'  the  victim  to  pieces  has  been  noted  both  in 
the  Indian  type  and  in  its  folklore  parallels.  One 
might  be  tempted,  perhaps,  to  draw  attention  to  the 
curious  parallel  which  the  use  of  the  whip  by  the  Potraj 
of  the  Indian  village  bears  to  the  gad-whip  service  at 
Caistor,  in  Lincolnshire,  especially  as  the  whip  here 
used  is  bound  round  with  pieces  of  that  magic  plant 
the  rowan-tree,  and  by  tradition  is  connected  with  the 
death  of  a  human  being.2  But  this  analogy  may  be  one 
of  the  accidents  of  comparative  studies,  inasmuch  as  it 
is  not  supported  by  cumulative  or  other  confirmatory 
evidence.  No  such  reason  need  detain  us  from  con- 
sidering the  fact  of  women  offering  their  vows  at  the 
festival  in  a  nude  condition,  covered  only  with  the  leaves 
and  boughs  of  trees,  because  it  is  easy  to  turn  to  the 
folklore  parallels  to  this  custom,  in  Mr.  Hartland's 
admirable  study  of  the  Godiva  legend. 

Everyone  knows  this  legend,  which,  together  with 

1   Berrnckghire  Naturalists'  Field  Club,  ix.  510. 
*  Arch.  Journ.  vi.  239. 


ETHNIC  ELEMENTS   IN  CUSTOM  AND   RITUAL      37 

all   details   as  to  date  and   earliest   literary    forms,  is 
explained  by  Mr.  Hartland.1     I  shall  therefore  turn  to 
the   essential   points.     The  ride  of  the   Lady   Godiva 
naked  through  the   streets  of  Coventry  is   the  legend 
told  to   account  for  an  annual  procession  among   the 
municipal  pageants  of  that  town.      The  converse  view, 
that  the  pageant  arose  out  of  the  legend,  is  disproved 
by  the  facts.     To  meet  this  theory  the  legend  would 
have  to  be  founded  upon  a  definite  historical  fact  con- 
cerning  only  the  place  to   which   it  relates,   namely, 
Coventry.     For  this,  as  Mr.  Hartland  shows,  there  is 
absolutely  no  proof;  and  parallels    exist  in  two  other 
places,  one  in  the  shape  of  an  annual  procession,  the 
other  in  the  shape  of  a  legend  only.     I  pass  over  the 
many  interesting  traces  of  the  legend  in  folktales  which 
Mr.  Hartland  has  so  learnedly  collected  and  commented 
upon,  and   proceed  to   notice   the  other   examples  in 
England. 

The  first  occurs  at  Southam,  a  village  not  far  from 
Coventry.  '  Very  little  is  known  about  it  now,  save  one 
singular  fact — namely,  that  there  were  two  Godivas  in 
the  cavalcade,  and  one  of  them  was  black.' 2  The 
second  occurs  at  St.  Briavels,  in  Gloucestershire.  Here 
the  privilege  of  cutting  and  taking  the  wood  in  Hud- 

1  Science  of  Fairy  Tales,  p.  71  et  seq. 

2  Hartland,   op.   cit.,  p.   85.     This  important  discovery  of  Mr. 
Hartland's  may  fairly  be  compared  with  the  '  dirty  practice  of  the 
Greeks '  in  the  Dionysiac  mysteries  noted  above,  a  counterpart  of 
which  Mr.  Lang  some  years  ago  could  not  find  in  modern  folklore. — 
Folklore  Record,  ii.  introd.  p.  ii. 


38  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

noils,  and  the  custom  of  distributing  yearly  upon  Whit- 
Sunday  pieces  of  bread  and  cheese  to  the  congregation 
at  church,  are  connected  by  tradition  with  a  right 
obtained  of  some  Earl  of  Hereford,  then  lord  of  the 
forest  of  Dean,  at  the  instance  of  his  lady,  '  upon  the 
same  hard  terms  that  Lady  Godiva  obtained  the 
privilege  for  the  citizens  of  Coventry.' l 

Thus,  then,  we  have  as  the  basis  for  considering 
these  singular  survivals — 

(a)  The  Coventry  legend  and  ceremony,  kept  up  as 
municipal  custom,  and  recorded  as  early  as  the  thirteenth 
century  by  Eoger  of  Wendover. 

(fe)  The  Southam  ceremony,  kept  up  as  local  custom, 
unaccompanied  by  any  legend  as  to  origin. 

(c)  The  St.  Briavels  legend,  not  recorded  until  to- 
wards the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  accom- 
panied by  a  totally  different  custom. 

This  variation  in  the  local  methods  of  keeping  up 
this  remarkable  survival  is  one  of  some  significance  in 
the  consideration  of  its  origin,2  and  I  now  go  on  to  com- 
pare it  with  an  early  ceremony  in  Britain,  as  noted  by 
Pliny  :  '  Both  matrons  and  girls,'  says  this  authority, 
4  among  the  people  of  Britain  are  in  the  habit  of  staining 
their  body  all  over  with  woad  when  taking  part  in  the 
performance  of  certain  sacred  rites  ;  rivalling  thereby 
the  swarthy  hue  of  the  Ethiopians,  they  go  in  a  state  of 

1  Rudder,  History  of  Gloucestershire,  1779,  p.  307  ;  Gomme,  Gentle- 
man's  Magazine  Library — Manners  and  Customs,  p.  230  ;  Hartland 
op.  oit.  p.  78. 

2  I  have  enlarged  upon  this  in  Folklore,  i.  12. 


ETHNIC   ELEMENTS   IN   CUSTOM  AND   EITUAL      39 

nature.' l     Between  the  customs  and  legends  of  modern 
folklore  and  the  ancient  practice  of  the  Britons  there  is 
intimate  connection,  and  the  parallel  thus  afforded  to 
the  Indian  festival  seems  complete.     The  attendance  of 
votaries  at  a  religious  festival  in  a  state  of  nudity  has 
also  been  kept  up  in  another  form.     At  Stirling,  on 
one  of  the  early  days  of  May,  boys  of  ten  and  twelve 
years  old  divest  themselves  of  clothing,  and  in  a  state 
of  nudity  run  round  certain  natural  or  artificial  circles. 
Formerly  the  rounded  summit  of  Demyat,  an  eminence 
in  the  Ochil  range,  was  a  favourite  scene  of  this  strange 
pastime,  but  for  many  years  it  has  been  performed  at 
the  King's  Knot  in  Stirling,  an  octagonal  mound  in  the 
Royal  gardens.     The  performances  are  not  infrequently 
repeated  at  Midsummer  and  Lammas.2     The  fact  that 
in  this  instance  the  practice  is  continued  only  by  '  boys 
of  ten  and  twelve  years  old '  shows  that  we  have  here 
one  of  the  last  stages  of  an  old  rite  before  its  final  abo- 
lition.    It  would  have  been  difficult,  perhaps,  to  attach 
much  importance  to  this  example  as   a  survival   of  a 
rude   prehistoric  cult   unless  we   had   previously   dis- 
cussed the  Godiva  forms  of  it.     But  anyone  acquainted 
with  the  frequent  change  of  personnel  in  the  execution 
of  ceremonies  sanctioned  only    by   the  force  of  local 
tradition  will  have  little  difficulty  in  conceding  that  the 

1  J\rat.  Hist.  lib.  xxii.  cap.  1.  I  think  the  passage  in  the  poem  of 
Dionysius  Periegeta  about  the  rites  of  the  Amnites  may  be  compared, 
the  women  being  '  decked  in  the  dark-leaved  ivy's  clustering  buds.' 
See  Man.  Hist.  Brit.  p.  xvii. 

•  Rogers,  Social  Life  in  Scotland^  iii.  240. 


40  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

Scottish  custom  has  a  place  in  the  series  of  folklore 
items  which  connects  the  Godiva  ceremony  with  the 
religious  rites  of  the  ancient  Britons  as  recorded  by 
Pliny,  thus  cementing  the  close  parallel  which  the  whole 
bears  to  the  Indian  village  festival. 

I  think  it  will  be  admitted  that  these  parallels  are 
sufficiently  obvious  to  suggest  that  they  tell  the  same 
story  both  in  India  and  Europe.  They  do  not,  by  actual 
proof,  belong  to  the  Aryans  of  India ;  they  do  not, 
therefore,  by  legitimate  conclusion,  belong  to  the  Aryans 
of  Europe. 

But  it  may  be  argued  that  customs  which  in  India 
are  parts  of  one  whole  cannot  be  compared  with  customs 
in  Europe  which  are  often  isolated  and  sometimes  asso- 
ciated with  other  customs.  The  argument  will  not 
hold  good  if  the  conditions  of  survivals  in  folklore 
already  set  forth  are  duly  considered.  But  it  can  be 
met  by  the  test  of  evidence.  Some  of  the  customs 
which  in  South  India  form  a  part  of  the  festival  of  the 
village  goddess  are  in  other  parts  of  India  and  in  other 
countries  independent  customs,  or  associated  with  other 
surroundings  altogether,  thus  substantiating  my  sugges- 
tion that  this  village  festival  of  India  has  been  welded 
together  by  the  influence  of  races  antagonistic  to  each 
other  which  have  been  compelled  to  live  together  side 
by  side  for  a  long  period. 


41 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   MYTHIC   INFLUENCE   OF   A   CONQUEKED   RACE 

IT  appears,  then,  that  the  influence  of  a  conquered  race 
does  not  die  out  so  soon  as  the  conquerors  are  estab- 
lished. Their  religious  customs  and  ritual  are  still 
observed  under  the  new  regime,  and  in  some  cases,  as  in 
India,  very  little,  if  any,  attempt  is  made  to  disguise 
their  indigenous  origin.  Another  influence  exerted  by 
the  conquered  over  the  conquerors  is  more  subtle.  It  is 
not  the  adoption  or  extension  of  existing  customs  and 
beliefs,  or  the  evolution  of  a  new  stage  in  custom  and 
belief  in  consequence  of  the  amalgamation.  It  is  the 
creation  of  an  entirely  new  influence,  based  on  the  fear 
which  the  conquered  have  succeeded  in  creating  in  the 
minds  of  the  conquerors. 

Has  anyone  attempted  to  realise  the  effects  of  a 
permanent  residence  of  a  civilised  people  amidst  a 
lower  civilisation,  the  members  of  which  are  cruel,  crafty, 
and  unscrupulous  ?  In  some  regions  of  fiction,  such  as 
Kingsley's  '  Hereward '  and  Lytton's  '  Harold,'  a  sort  of 
picture  has  been  drawn — a  picture  drawn  and  coloured, 
however,  in  times  far  separated  from  those  which  wit- 


42  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

nessed  the  events.  Fennimore  Cooper  has  attempted  the 
task  with  better  materials  in  his  stories  of  the  white  man 
and  his  relations  to  the  Red  Indians.  But  by  far  the 
truest  accounts  are  to  be  found  in  the  dry  records  of 
official  history.  One  such  record  has  been  transferred  to 
the  archives  of  the  Anthropological  Institute,1  and  it 
would  be  described  by  any  ordinary  reader  as  a  record 
of  the  doings  of  demons. 

Of  course  this  phraseology  is  figurative.  But  figures 
of  speech  very  often  survive  from  the  figures  of  the 
ancient  mythic  conceptions  of  actual  events,  and  though 
we  should  simply  style  the  doings  of  the  Tasmanians 
fighting  against  the  Whites  demoniacal  as  an  appropriate 
figure  of  speech,  people  of  a  lower  culture,  and  our  own 
peasantry  a  few  years  back,  would  believe  them  to  be 
demoniacal  in  the  literal  sense  of  that  term.  No  one 
will  doubt  that  there  is  much  in  savage  warfare  to  sug- 
gest these  ideas,  and  when  it  is  remembered  that  savage 
warfare  is  waged  by  one  tribe  against  another  simply 
because  they  are  strangers  to  each  other — that  not  to 
be  a  member  of  a  tribe  is  to  be  an  enemy — it  will  not 
be  surprising  that  the  condition  of  hostility  has  pro- 
duced its  share  of  superstition. 

It  is  the  hostility  between  races,  not  the  hostility 
between  tribes  of  the  same  race,  that  has  produced  the 
most  marked  form  of  superstition  ;  and  it  may  be  put 
down  as  one  of  the  axioms  of  our  science  that  the 

1  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.  iii.  9 ;  cf.  Nilsson's  Primitive  Inhabitants 
of  Scandinavia,  p.  176. 


MYTHIC   INFLUENCE   OF  A  CONQUERED  RACE      43 

hostility  of  races  wherever  they  dwell  long  together  in 
close  contact  has  always  produced  superstition.  Unfor- 
tunately no  examples  of  this  have  been  noted  by 
travellers  as  a  general  rule,  but  there  is  ample  evidence 
in  support  of  the  statement,  and  I  shall  adduce  some. 

The  inland  tribes  of  New  Guinea  are  distinct  from 
those  of  the  coast,1  but  the  spirit  beliefs  of  the  coast 
tribes  which  are  described  as  being  unusually  prevalent 
are  chiefly  derived  from  their  fear  of  the  aboriginal  tribes. 
They  believe,  says  Mr.  Lawes,  when  the  natives  are  in 
the  neighbourhood  that  the  whole  plain  is  full  of  spirits 
who  come  with  them  ;  all  calamities  are  attributed  to 
the  power  and  malice  of  these  evil  spirits ;  drought, 
famine,  storm  and  flood,  disease  and  death,  are  all 
supposed  to  be  brought  by  Vata  and  his  hosts.2  la 
this  case  the  aborigines  are  represented  as  accompanied 
by  their  own  spiritual  guardians,  who  wage  war  upon 
the  newcomers.  In  other  cases  aboriginal  people  are 
credited  with  the  power  of  exercising  demon  functions 
or  assuming  demon  forms.  Thus  every  tribe  in  Western 
Australia  holds  those  to  the  north  of  it  in  especial 
dread,  imputing  to  them  an  immense  power  of  enchant- 
ment ;  and  this,  says  Mr.  Oldfield,  seems  to  justify  the 
inference  that  the  peopling  of  New  Holland  has  taken 
place  from  various  points  towards  the  north.3  The  Hova 
tribes  of  Madagascar  deified  the  Vazimba  aborigines,  and 


1  Romilly,  From  my  VerandaJi,  p.  249. 

2  Trans.  Geog.  Soc.  N.S.  ii.  615. 

3  Tram.  Ethnol.  Soc.  N.S.  iii.  216,  235,  236. 


44  ETHNOLOGY  IN   FOT.RT.nTlF. 

still  consider  their  tombs  as  the  most  sacred  objects  in 
the  country.  These  spirits  are  supposed  to  be  of  two 
kinds — the  kindly  disposed,  and  the  fierce  and  cruel. 
Some  are  said  to  inhabit  the  water,  while  others  are 
terrestrial  in  their  habits,  and  they  are  believed  to 
appear  to  those  who  seek  their  aid  in  dreams,  warning 
them  and  directing  them.1  In  the  case  of  the  Ainos,  the 
supposed  aborigines  of  Japan,  the  subject  and  object  of 
the  superstition  seem  to  be  reversed,  for  it  is  the  Ainos 
who  are  superstitiously  afraid  of  the  Japanese ; 2  but  it 
is  to  be  observed  that  the  ethnology  of  the  Ainos,  and 
their  place  in  the  country  prior  to  the  present  condition 
of  things,  have  not  been  sufficiently  examined.  Certainly 
their  position  in  this  group  of  superstitions  will  need 
consideration.  Two  examples  may  be  mentioned  of  the 
attitude  of  Malays  to  their  conquered  foes.  To  a 
Malay  an  aboriginal  Jakun  is  a  supernatural  being  en- 
dowed with  a  supernatural  power  and  with  an  unlimited 
knowledge  of  the  secrets  of  nature ;  he  must  be  skilled 
in  divination,  sorcery,  and  fascination,  and  able  to  do 
either  evil  or  good  according  to  his  pleasure ;  his  bless- 
ing will  be  followed  by  the  most  fortunate  success,  and 
his  curse  by  the  most  dreadful  consequences.  When 
he  hates  some  person,  he  turns  himself  towards  the 
house,  strikes  two  sticks  one  upon  the  other,  and,  what- 

1  Anthrop.   Inst.   v.    190 ;    Sibree,  Madagascar,   p.   135 ;  Ellis, 
Madagascar,  i.  123,  423. 

2  Trans.  Ethnol.  Soc.  N.S.  vii.  24.     Mr.  Bickmore  in  this  paper 
makes  some  very  pertinent  suggestions  as  to  the  probable  ethnic 
origin  of  the  Ainos. 


MYTHIC   INFLUENCE   OF   A   CONQUERED   RACE       45 

ever  may  be  the  distance,  his  enemy  will  fall  sick  and 
even  die  if  he  perseveres  in  that  exercise  for  a  few 
days.  Besides,  to  a  Malay  the  Jakun  is  a  man  who  by 
his  nature  must  necessarily  know  all  the  properties  of 
every  plant,  and  consequently  must  be  a  clever  physician, 
and  the  Malay  when  sick  will  obtain  his  assistance,  or 
at  least  get  some  medicinal  plants  from  him.  The 
Jakun  is  also  gifted  with  the  power  of  charming  the 
wild  beasts,  even  the  most  ferocious.1  The  second  ex- 
ample includes  the  Chinese.  The  Malays  and  Chinese 
of  Malacca  have  implicit  faith  in  the  supernatural  power 
of  the  Poyangs,  and  believe  that  many  others  amongst 
the  aborigines  are  imbued  with  it.  Hence  they  are 
careful  to  avoid  offending  them  in  any  way,  because  it 
is  believed  they  take  offence  deeply  to  heart,  and  will 
sooner  or  later,  by  occult  means,  revenge  themselves. 
The  Malays  resort  to  them  for  the  cure  of  diseases. 
Eevenge  also  not  infrequently  sends  them  to  the  Poyangs, 
whose  power  they  invoke  to  cause  disease  and  other 
misfortune,  or  even  death,  to  those  who  have  injured 
them.2  The  Burmese  and  Siamese  hold  the  hill  tribes, 
the  Lawas,  in  great  dread,  believing  them  to  be  man- 
bears.3  The  Budas  of  Abyssinia  are  looked  upon  as 
sorcerers  and  werewolves.4 

These  examples  will  serve  to  show  the  influences  at 
work  for  the  production  of  superstitious  beliefs  arising 

1  Journ.  Ind.  Arch.  ii.  273-4.  2  Ibid.  i.  328. 

9  Colquhoun's  Amongst  the  Shans,  p.  52;  Bastian,  (Estl.  Asien. 
i.  119. 

4  Hall's  Life  of  Nathaniel  Pcaree,  i.  286. 


46  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

out  of  the  hostility  of  races.  My  next  point  is  to 
illustrate  this  principle  in  connection  with  the  Aryan 
race.  Do  they,  like  the  inferior  races,  endow  with 
superhuman  faculties  the  non-Aryan  aborigines  against 
whom  they  have  fought  in  every  land  where  they 
have  become  masters  ? 

Again  we  must  turn  to  India  for  an  answer  to  our 
question.  The  mountain  ranges  and  great  jungle  tracts 
of  Southern  India,  says  Mr.  Walhouse,  are  inhabited 
by  semi-savage  tribes,  who,  there  is  good  reason  to 
believe,  once  held  the  fertile  open  plains,  and  were  the 
builders  of  those  megalithic  sepulchres  which  abound 
over  the  cultivated  country.1  All  these  races  are 
regarded  by  their  Hindu  masters  with  boundless 
contempt,  and  held  unspeakably  unclean.  Yet  there 
are  many  curious  rights  and  privileges  which  the 
despised  castes  possess  and  tenaciously  retain.  Some  of 
these  in  connection  with  the  village  festival,  which  has 
been  examined  at  length,  we  already  know.  On  certain 
days  they  may  enter  temples  which  at  other  times  they 
must  not  approach;  there  are  several  important  cere- 
monial and  social  observances  which  they  are  always 
called  upon  to  inaugurate  or  take  some  share  in,  and 
which,  indeed,  says  Mr.  Walhouse,  would  be  held  in- 
complete and  unlucky  without  them.  But,  what  is 
more  important  for  our  immediate  purpose,  Mr.  Wal- 
house also  says  that  '  the  contempt  and  loathing  in 
which  they  are  ordinarily  held  are  curiously  tinctured 

Journ.  Anthroj).  Tnst.  iv.  371. 


MYTHIC  INFLUENCE   OF  A  CONQUERED   EACE      47 

with  superstitious  fear,  for  they  are  believed  to  possess 
secret  powers  of  magic  and  witchcraft  and-  influence 
with  the  old  malignant  deities  of  the  soil  who  can 
direct  good  or  evil  fortune.' l  I  lay  stress  upon  this 
passage  because  in  it  is  contained  virtually  the  whole  of 
the  evidence  I  am  seeking  for.  It  is  supported  by 
abundant  testimony,  brought  together  with  clearness 
and  precision  by  Mr.  Walhouse,  and  it  is  confirmed  by 
many  other  authorities,  whom  it  would  be  tedious  to 
quote  at  length.  To  this  day,  says  Colonel  Dalton,  the 
Aryans  settled  in  Chota  Nagpore  and  Singbhoom 
firmly  believe  that  the  Moondahs  have  powers  as 
wizards  and  witches,  and  can  transform  themselves 
into  tigers  and  other  beasts  of  prey  with  a  view  to 
devouring  their  enemies,  and  that  they  can  witch  away 
the  lives  of  man  and  beast.2  The  Hindus,  Latham  tells 
us,  regard  the  Katodi  with  awe,  believing  that  they  can 
transform  themselves  into  tigers.3  I  will  finally  quote 
the  evidence  from  Ceylon.  '  The  wild  ignorant  savages ' 
who  inhabited  this  island  when  the  Hindus  conquered  it 
are  termed  by  the  chroniclers  demons,4  and  demonism 
in  Ceylon,  originating  with  this  non- Aryan  aboriginal 
people,  has  grown  into  a  cult. 

1  Journ.  AntTirop.  Inxt.  iv.  371-72. 

2  Tram.  Ethnol.  Soc.  N.S.  vi.  6 ;  Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,  1866, 
part  ii.   158.      How   these  beliefs   react  on  the  non-Aryan   races 
amongst  themselves  may  be  ascertained  by  referring  to  the  Toda 
beliefs  noted  in  Trans.  Ethnol.  Soc.  N.S.  vii.  247,  277,  287. 

3  Descriptive  Ethnology,  ii.  457. 

4  Journ.  As.  Soc.  Ceylon,  1865-66,  p.  3  ;  Tennent's    Ceylon, 
331.     As  to  the  remnants  of  these  races  see  Lassen,  Indische  Alter- 
thumskunde,  i.  199,  362. 


48  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOEE 

It  bears  on  the  question  of  the  relationship  between 
conquerors  and  conquered  which  has  been  illustrated  by 
this  evidence  to  observe  that  Professor  Robertson  Smith, 
from  evidence  apart  from  that  I  have  used,  has  relegated 
demonism  to  the  position  of  a  cult  hostile  to  and  sepa- 
rate from  the  tribal  beliefs  of  early  people.1 

I  feel  quite  sure  that  the  examples  I  have  drawn 
from  the  history  of  savagery,  and  from  the  history  of  the 
conflict  between  Chinese  and  Hindu  civilisation  and 
savagery,  have  already  enabled  the  reader  to  detect 
many  points  of  contact  between  these  and  the  history  of 
demonism  and  witchcraft  in  the  Western  world.  I  shall 
examine  some  of  these  points  of  contact,  and  then  I  shall 
turn  to  some  more  debatable  matter. 

The  demonism  of  savagery  is  parallel  to  the  witchcraft 
of  civilisation  in  the  power  which  votaries  of  the  two 
cults  profess,  and  are  allowed  by  their  believers  to  possess, 
over  the  elements,  over  wild  beasts,  and  in  changing 
their  own  human  form  into  some  animal  form,  and  it 
will  be  well  to  give  some  examples  of  these  powers  from 
the  folklore  of  the  British  Isles. 

(a)  In  Pembrokeshire  there  was  a  person,  commonly 
known  as  '  the  cunning  man  of  Pentregethen,'  who  sold 
winds  to  the  sailors,  and  who  was  reverenced  in  the 

1  Religion  of  the  Semites,  pp.  65,  115,  129,  145,  246.  Mr.  Wai- 
house,  in  Joiirn.  Anthroj).  Inst,  v.  413,  draws  attention  to  the  wide- 
spread and  parallel  beliefs  in  demons— beliefs  which  in  India  until 
lately,  and  in  ancient  Germany  and  Gaul  altogether,  were  entirely 
ignored  by  inquirers,  and  he  says  they '  belong  to  the  Turanian  races, 
and  are  antagonistic  to  the  Aryan  genius  and  feelings,'  p.  411.  Cf. 
Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  i.  102. 


MYTHIC   INFLUENCE   OF  A   CONQUERED   EACE      49 

neighbourhood  in  which  he  dwelt  much  more  than  the 
divines  ;  he  could  ascertain  the  state  of  absent  friends, 
and-  performed  all  the  wonderful  actions  ascribed  to 
conjurers.1  At  Stromness,  in  the  Orkneys,  so  late  as 
1814,  there  lived  an  old  beldame  who  sold  favourable 
winds  to  mariners.  She  boiled  her  kettle,  muttered  her 
incantations,  and  so  raised  the  wind.2  In  the  Isle  of  Man 
Higden  says  the  women  '  selle  to  shipmen  wynde,  as  it 
were  closed  under  three  knotes  of  threde,  so  that  the 
more  wynde  he  wold  have,  the  more  knotes  he  must 
vndo.' 3  At  Kempoch  Point,  in  the  Firth  of  Clyde,  is  a 
columnar  rock  called  the  Kempoch  Stane,  from  whence 
a  saint  was  wont  to  dispense  favourable  winds  to  those 
who  paid  for  them,  and  unfavourable  to  those  who  did 
not  put  confidence  in  his  powers;  a  tradition  which 
seems  to  have  been  carried  on  by  the  Innerkip  witches, 
who  were  tried  in  1662,  and  some  portions  of  which  still 
linger  among  the  sailors  of  Greenock.4  These  practices 
may  be  compared  with  the  performances  of  the  priestesses 
of  Sena,  who,  as  described  by  Pomponius  Mela,  were 
capable  of  rousing  up  the  seas  and  winds  by  incantations.5 
(ft)  The  power  of  witches  over  animals,  and  their 
capacity  to  transform  themselves  into  animal  shapes,  is 

1  Howells'  Cambrian  Superstitions,  1831,  p.  86. 
3  Gorrie,  Summers  and  Winters  in  Orkney,  p.  47. 

3  Polychronicon  by  Trevisa,  i.  cap.  44. 

4  Cuthbert  Bede,  Glencreggan,  i.  9,  44 ;  cf.  Sinclair's  Stat.  Ace. 
of  Scot.  viii.  52. 

5  Pomponius  Mela,  iii.  8.     It  is  curious  to  note  that  a  district 
of  Douglas  in  the  Isle  of  Man  is  known  as  Sena. — Trans.  Manx 
Soc.  v.  65  ;  Rev.  Celt.  x.  352. 

E 


50  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

well  known,  though,  as  civilisation  has  gradually  eradi- 
cated the  wilder  sorts  of  animals,  we  do  not  now  hear 
of  these  in  connection  with  witchcraft.  The  most  usual 
transformations  are  into  cats  and  hares,  and  less  fre- 
quently into  red  deer,  and  these  have  taken  the  place  of 
wolves.  Thus,  cat-transformations  are  found  in  York- 
shire ; !  hare-transformations  in  Devonshire,  Yorkshire, 
Wales,  and  Scotland ; a  deer-transformations  in  Cumber- 
land;3  raven-transformations  in  Scotland  ; 4  cattle  trans- 
formations in  Ireland.5  Indeed  the  connection  between 
witches  and  the  lower  animals  is  a  very  close  one,  and 
hardly  anywhere  in  Europe  does  it  occur  that  this  con- 
nection is  relegated  to  a  subordinate  place.  Story  after 
story,  custom  after  custom  is  recorded  as  appertaining  to 
witchcraft,  and  animal-transformation  appears  always. 

From  this  it  may  be  admitted  that  the  general 
characteristics  of  the  superstitions  brought  about  by  the 
contact  between  the  Aryan  conquerors  of  India  and  the 
non- Aryan  aborigines  are  also  represented  in  the  cult  of 
European  witchcraft.  When  we  pass  from  these  general 
characteristics  to  some  of  the  details,  the  identity  of  the 
Indian  with  the  European  superstitions  is  more  em- 
phatically marked.  Thus,  in  Orissa  it  is  believed  that 
witches  have  the  power  of  leaving  their  bodies  and 
going  about  invisibly,  but  if  the  flower  of  the  pan  or 

1  Henderson's  Folklore,  pp.  206,  207,  209. 

2  Henderson,  pp.  201,  202,  208;  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitions 
of  Scotland,  p.  560;  Folklore,\\.  291. 

*  Henderson,  p.  204.  4  Dalyell,  p.  559. 

*  Dalyell,  p.  561. 


MYTHIC   INFLUENCE   OF  A  CONQUEEED  RACE      51 

betil-leaf  can  be  obtained  and  placed  in  the  right  ear,  it 
will  enable  the  onlooker  to  see  the  witches  and  talk  to 
them  with  impunity.1     This  is  represented  in  folklore 
by  the  magic  ointment,  which  enables  people  to  see 
otherwise  invisible  fairies,  and  by  the  supposed  property 
of  the  fern-seed,  which  makes  people  invisible.2     Such 
a  parallel  as  this  could  only  have  been  produced  by 
going  back  to  origins.     Again,  in  the  charms  resorted 
to   by  the  demon-priests   of  Ceylon  we   find  a   close 
parallel,  which  belongs  to  the  same  category.     A  small 
image,  made  of  wax  or  wood,  or  a  figure  drawn  upon  a 
leaf  or  something  else,  supposed  to  represent  the  person 
to  be  injured,  is  submitted   to  the  sorcerer,    together 
with  a  few  hairs  from  the   head  of  the  victim,  some 
clippings  of  his  finger-nails,  and  a  thread  or  two  from 
a  cloth  worn  by  him.     Nails  made  of  a  composition  of 
five  different  kinds  of  metals,  generally  gold,  silver, 
copper,  tin,  and  lead,  are  then  driven  into  the  image  at 
all  those  points  which  represent  the  joints,  the  heart,  the 
head,  and  other  important  parts  of  the  body.    The  name 
of  the  intended  victim  being  marked  on  the  image,  it  is 
buried  in  the  ground  in  some  suitable  place  where  the 
victim  is  likely  to  pass  over  it.3     This  method  of  de- 
struction by  images  is  one  of  the  most  generally  known 
among  the  practices  of  witchcraft  in  Europe.     Plato 

1  Handbook  of  Folklore,  p.  40. 

2  Hartland,  Science  of  Fairy  Tales,  p.  59  et  seq. ;  Brand,  i.  315  ;  cf. 
Grimm,  Teut.  Myth.  Hi.  1210. 

3  Journ.  As.  Soc.    Ceylon,  1865-6,  p.  71  ;  cf.  Ward,  Hint,  of  the 
Hindoos,  ii.  100. 

E2 


52  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOEE 

alludes  to  it  as  obtaining  among  the  Greeks  of  his 
period.1  Boethius  says  a  waxen  image  was  fabricated 
for  the  destruction  of  one  of  the  Scottish  kings  of  the 
tenth  century,  and  if  this  author  is  not  to  be  taken  too 
seriously  for  so  early  a  period,  his  narrative  is  too  cir- 
cumstantial not  to  be  readily  accepted  as  a  current 
belief  at  least  of  his  own  time.2  The  later  Scottish 
practices  contain  all  the  elements  of  the  Ceylon  practices. 
The  image  was  fabricated  of  any  available  materials,  it 
was  baptised  by  the  name  of  the  victim,  or  characterised 
by  certain  definitions  identifying  the  resemblance,  the 
various  parts  were  pierced  with  pins  or  needles,  or  the 
whole  was  wasted  by  heat,  and  pieces  of  the  victim's 
hair  were  associated  with  it.3  These  close  parallels 
cannot  be  accidental,  and  I  am  tempted  to  add  that 
when  we  come  upon  other  parallels  which  almost 
suggest  the  element  of  accident  for  their  production, 
they  may  after  all  be  due  to  parallel  developments  from 
the  same  originals.4 

It  seems  to  me  to  be  as  impossible  to  ignore  the 
evidence  produced  by  these  close  parallels  as  to  accept 
it  at  less  than  its  full  value.  If  the  demonism  of  India 

1  Plato,  Lams,  lib.  xi. 

2  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitions  of  Scotland,  pp.  332-333. 
8  Dalyell,  op.  tit.  pp.  334-351. 

4  Such,  for  instance,  as  the  revenge  perpetrated  upon  the  young 
wife  in  stopping  the  birth  of  her  first  child  when  her  marriage  was 
resented  by  a  former  fiancee  of  her  husband ;  for  which  compare 
really  remarkable  parallels  in  Ceylon  As.  Soc.,  1865-6,  p.  70,  and 
Folklore  Record,  ii.  116-117.  It  is  important  to  note  that  Grimm 
rejects  the  idea  of  plagiarism  to  account  for  the  similarity  in  witch 
doings.— Teut.  Myth.  iii.  1044. 


MYTHIC  INFLUENCE   OF  A  CONQUEEED  EACE      53 

is  non- Aryan  in  origin  and  produced  by  the  contact 
between  Aryans  and  aborigines,  the  witchcraft  of  Europe 
must  be  equally  non- Aryan  in  origin  and  produced  by 
the  contact  between  Aryans  and  aborigines,  even  although 
during  the  ages  of  civilisation  the  people  who  have 
carried  on  the  cult  have  not  kept  up  their  race  dis- 
tinction side  by  side  with  their  race  superstition.1 

Fortunately  there  is  one  singular  fact  preserved 
among  the  ceremonies  of  witchcraft  in  Scotland  which 
helps  us  to  carry  this  argument  a  step  forward  towards 
absolute  proof.  In  order  to  injure  the  waxen  image  of 
the  intended  victim,  the  implements  used  in  some  cases 
by  the  witches  were  stone  arrowheads,  or  elf-shots  as 
they  were  called,2  and  their  use  was  accompanied  by  an 
incantation.3  Here  we  have,  in  the  undoubted  form  of 
a  prehistoric  implement,  the  oldest  untouched  detail  of 
early  life  which  has  been  preserved  by  witchcraft,  and 
it  is  such  untouched  oldest  fragments,  not  their  modern 
substitutions  or  additions,  which  must  be  accentuated 
by  the  student  of  folklore ;  they  clearly  must  be  the 
starting-point  of  any  explanation  which  may  be  sought 
for  of  the  usages  and  superstitions  of  which  they  form 
a  part.  Grimm  has  stripped  witchcraft  of  the  accretions 
due  to  the  action  of  the  Church  against  heretics,  and 

1  This  observation  even  may  have  to  be  modified  by  further  re- 
search, for  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  laws  witchcraft  is  generally  mentioned 
as  a  crime  peculiar  to  serfs. 

2  Pitcairn,  Criminal  Trials,  i.  192;  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitions 
of  Scotland,  pp.  352,  353  ;   cf.  Nilsson's   Primitive  Inhabitants  of 
Scandinavia,  p.  199. 

3  Dalyell,  op.  tit.  p.  357. 


54  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 

perceives  '  in  the  whole  witch  business  a  clear  connec- 
tion with  the  sacrifices  and  spirit  world  of  the  ancient 
Germans,' '  and  it  seems  that  this  definition  must  be 
enlarged  to  include  all  branches  of  the  Aryan  race. 

It  is  interesting  to  turn  from  these  stone  implements 
used  in  witchcraft  to  the  beliefs  about  them  in  peasant 
thought.  Irish  peasants  wear  flint  arrowheads  about 
their  necks  set  in  silver  as  an  amulet  against  elf-shoot- 
ing.2 In  the  west  of  Ireland,  but  especially  in  the 
Arran  Isles,  Galway  Bay,  they  are  looked  on  with  great 
superstition.  They  are  supposed  to  be  fairy  darts  or 
arrows,  which  have  been  thrown  by  fairies,  either  in 
fights  among  themselves  or  at  a  mortal  man  or  beast. 
The  finder  of  one  should  carefully  put  it  in  a  hole  in  a 
wall  or  ditch.  It  should  not  be  brought  into  a  house 
or  given  to  anyone  ;  but  the  islanders  of  Arran  are  very 
fond  of  making  votive  offerings  of  them  at  the  holy 
wells  on  the  mainland.  They  carry  them  to  the  different 
patrons  and  leave  them  there,  but  they  do  not  seem  to 
leave  them  at  the  holy  wells  on  the  island.3 

If  a  quotation  from  the  Brontes'  eminently  local 
novels  is  to  be  admitted  as  evidence,  the  belief  that 
stone  arrowheads  were  elf-shots  was  prevalent  in 
Yorkshire.4 

In  Scotland,  Edward  Lhwyd  noted   in    1713  that 

1  Tent.  Myth.  iii.  1045. 

2  Henderson,  Folklore  of  Northern  Countries,  p.  185. 

8  Folklore  Record,  iv.   112 ;   cf.   Vallancey,    Collectanea,   xiii. 
Nenia  Britannica,  p.  154. 
4  Folklore  Journal,  i.  300. 


MYTHIC   INFLUENCE   OF  A   CONQUERED   RACE      55 

'  the  most  curious  as  well  as  the  vulgar  throughout  this 
country  are  satisfied  they  often  drop  out  of  the  air, 
being  shot  by  fairies,'  and  that  '  they  have  not  been 
used  as  amulets  above  thirty  or  forty  years.' 1  At  Lauder 
and  in  Banffshire  the  peasantry  called  them  elf  arrow- 
heads.2 At  Wick,  in  Caithness,  the  peasantry  asserted 
that  they  were  fairies'  arrows,  and  that  the  fairies  shot 
them  at  cattle,  which  instantly  fell  down  dead,  though 
the  hide  of  the  animal  remained  quite  entire.3  That 
this  was  a  Lowland  Scotch  belief  is  also  attested  by 
Keightley's  collection  of  facts.4 

Thus,  then,  in  witchcraft  and  in  peasant  thought 
there  is  a  common  belief  as  to  prehistoric  arrowheads 
having  belonged  to  beings  known  as  elves.  It  proves, 
as  Nilsson  observes,  that  it  was  not  the  Celts  themselves, 
but  a  people  considered  by  them  to  be  versed  in  magic, 
who  fabricated  and  used  these  stone  arrows.5  These 
people,  whoever  they  may  prove  to  be,  were  therefore 
powerful  enough  to  introduce  mythic  conceptions  con- 
cerning themselves  into  the  minds  of  their  conquerors, 
and  some  authorities  of  eminence  have  not  hesitated  to 
urge  that  they  have  even  left  traditions  of  their  existence 
in  a  more  historical  shape.6  '  Who,'  asks  Mr.  Campbell, 

1  Folklore  Record,  iv.  169 ;  cf.  Gregor's  Folklore  of  North-east 
of  Scotland,  p.  59. 

2  Sinclair's  Stat.  Ace.  Scot.  i.  73 ;  iii.  56. 

3  Ibid.  x.  15  ;  xxi.  148.          4  Fairy  Mythology,  pp.  351-352. 

5  Primitive  Inhabitants  of  Scandinavia,  p.  200. 

6  Skene,  in  the  first  volume  of  his  Celtic  Scotland,  and  Elton,  in 
his  Origins  of  English  History,  cap.  vii.,  are  the  most  available  autho- 
rities on  this  subject. 


56  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

X 
'were  these  powers  of  evil  who  cannot  resist  iron — 

these  fairies  who  shoot  stone  arrows,  and  are  of  the  foes 
to  the  human  race  ?  Is  all  this  but  a  dim  hazy  recollec- 
tion of  war  between  a  people  who  had  iron  weapons  and 
a  race  who  had  not — a  race  whose  remains  are  found  all 
over  Europe  ? ' l 

We  are  here  met  by  two  opposing  theories — one 
whose  upholders  look  back  upon  the  fairy  traditions  as 
evidence  of  so  much  actual  history,  the  other  as  evidence 
only  of  the  spirit  beliefs  of  past  ages. 

But  if  the  close  inter-relationship  between  fairy- 
beliefs  and  witch-beliefs  be  steadily  kept  in  mind,  these 
opposing  theories  may,  I  think,  be  brought  into  some- 
thing like  unison.  Mr.  Hartland  has  proved  this  close 
inter-relationship  by  a  lengthy  investigation,2  and  it  must 
henceforth  be  the  basis  of  research  into  these  depart- 
ments of  folklore. 

We  commence  the  task  of  certifying  to  the  unison 
of  these  two  theories  with  the  fact  of  the  personal 
element  in  witchcraft — the  attribution  of  magical  powers, 
derived  from  the  spirit  of  evil,  to  certain  definite  classes 

1  Tales  of  the  West  Highlands,  p.  Ixxvi. ;  Nilsson,  in  Primitice 
Inhabitants  of  Scandinavia  (p.  247  et  seq.\  and  MacRitchie,  in  his 
Testimony  of  Tradition,  have  followed  this  line  of  argument. 

2  Science  of  Fairy  Tales,  passim.     Grimm's  observation  that  the 
witches'  devils  have  proper  names  so  strikingly  similar  in  formation 
to  those  of  elves  and  kobolds  that  one  can  scarcely  think  otherwise 
than  that  nearly  all  devils'  names  of  that  class  are  descended  from 
older  folk-names  for  those  sprites—  Teut.  Myth.  iii.  1063— strikingly 
confirms  the  explanation  I  have  ventured  upon  as  to  the  connection 
between  witchcraft  and  fairycraft. 

y^  itJUuJ.  1.  £t«-  Arvrw  r  t/uv.  6 


MYTHIC   INFLUENCE   OF  A   CONQUERED   RACE      57 

of  people,  the  acceptance  of  this  attribution  by  the  people 
concerned,  and  their  claim  to  have  become  acquainted 
with  their  supposed  powers  by  initiation.  I  am  inclined 
to  lay  great  stress  upon  the  act  of  initiation.  It  empha- 
sises the  idea  of  a  caste  distinct  from  the  general 
populace,  and  it  postulates  the  existence  of  this  caste 
anterior  to  the  time  when  those  who  practise  their  sup- 
posed powers  first  come  into  notice.  Carrying  back  this 
act  of  initiation  age  after  age,  as  the  dismal  records  of 
witchcraft  enable  us  to  do  for  some  centuries,  it  is  clear 
that  the  people  from  time  to  time  thus  introduced  into 
the  witch  caste  carried  on  the  practices  and  assumed  the 
functions  of  the  caste  even  though  they  came  to  it  as 
novices  and  strangers.  We  thus  arrive  at  an  artificial 
means  of  descent  of  a  particular  group  of  superstition, 
and  it  might  be  termed  initiatory  descent. 

But  descent  by  initiation  was  not  invented  without 
some  good  and  sufficient  cause,  and  this  cause  will  be 
found,  I  think,  in  the  failure  of  blood-descent.  In  the 
primitive  Aryan  family,  failure  of  blood-descent  led  to  the 
legal  fiction  of  adoption,  and  the  history  of  caste  almost 
everywhere  shows  the  same  phenomenon.  I  do  not  wish 
to  ask  too  much  from  this  argument  before  it  is  substan- 
tiated by  evidence,  but  that  we  may  take  it  as  a  sound 
working  hypothesis  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  it  sup- 
plies the  missing  link  in  a  most  important  series  of 
developments  clearly  marked  in  the  history  of  witchcraft, 
and  its  connection  with  fairycraft. 

The  only  people   occupying  the   lands  of  modern 


58  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

European  civilisation  who  have  not  succeeded  in 
marking  their  descendants  with  the  stamp  of  their 
race  origin  are  the  non-Aryans.  Celt,  Teuton,  Scandi- 
navian, and  Slav  are  still  to  be  found  in  centres  defin- 
able on  the  map  of  Europe,  but  except  in  the  Basque 
Pyrenees  the  forerunners  of  the  Aryan  peoples  have 
become  absorbed  by  their  conquerors.  Blood-descent 
was  of  no  avail  to  them  for  the  keeping  alive  of  their 
old  faiths  and  beliefs.  That  they  resorted  to  initiation 
as  a  remedy  is  the  suggestion  I  wish  to  make,  and  that 
in  witchcraft  there  has  been  preserved  some  of  the  non- 
Aryan  faiths  and  beliefs  is  the  conclusion  I  wish  to 
draw — a  conclusion  which  is  met  more  than  half-way  by 
the  close  parallel  which,  as  we  have  already  partly  seen, 
exists  between  the  beliefs  and  practices  of  witches  and 
non- Aryan  beliefs. 

I  think  it  is  more  than  probable  that  the  ancient 
cult  of  Druidism  will  prove  to  be  a  factor  in  the  race- 
history  of  witchcraft.  At  the  time  when  all  traces  of 
Druidism,  as  such,  had  completely  died  out  in  Britain, 
some  of  the  practices  attributed  to  witches  were  exact 
reproductions  of  the  practices  attributed  to  Druids  by 
the  earlier  writers.  One  of  the  most  significant,  as  it  is 
one  of  the  most  painful,  of  these  practices  has  for 
its  basis  the  belief  that  the  life  of  one  man  could  only 
be  redeemed  by  that  of  another.  The  evidence  for  the 
Druidical  side  of  this  parallel  is  given  by  Caesar  and 
other  authorities.  The  evidence  for  it  in  witchcraft  is 
given  in  some  of  the  seventeenth-century  trials,  where 


59 

all  the  details  of  the  horrid  rites  are  related  with 
minute  accuracy.1  I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to 
these  details  at  some  length  later  on,  but  I  note  here 
that  they  supply  us  not  only  with  evidence  of  the  con- 
tinuity in  witchcraft  of  a  particular  Druidic  belief,  but 
also  of  the  continuity  of  the  methods  of  adapting  this 
belief  to  practice — namely,  through  the  interposition  of 
a  trained  adept,  in  fact  the  priestess  of  a  cult ;  for  in 
this  instance  at  all  events,  the  Scottish  witch  is  the 
successor  of  the  Druid  priestess.  She  is  so  in  other 
characteristics  already  noted — in  her  capacity  for  trans- 
formation into  animal  form,  in  her  power  over  winds 
and  waves,  both  being  common  to  witch  and  Druidess 
alike. 

It  is  no  answer  to  the  argument  that  Druidism 
was  continued  by  witchcraft  to  point  to  the  apparent 
chronological  gap  between  the  decline  of  one  and  the 
earliest  historical  mention  of  the  other.2  That  Druidism 
continued  to  exist  long  after  it  was  officially  dead  can 
be  proved.  The  character  of  much  of  the  paganism  of 
the  early  Scots  and  Picts  has  been  accepted  as  Druidic 
by  Mr.  Skene.  The  histories  of  the  labours  of  St. 
Patrick  and  St.  Columba  abound  in  references  to  the 
Druids.  '  The  Druids  of  Laogaire,'  says  an  ancient 
poem,  '  concealed  not  from  him  the  coming  of 

1  Cf.  Forbes  Leslie,  Early  Races  of  Scotland,  i.  83 ;    Dalyell 
Darker  Sujurstitions  of  Scotland,  p.  176. 

2  Grimm  says  that  the  earlier  middle  ages  had  known  of  magi- 
cians and  witches  only  in  the  milder  senses,  as  legendary  elvish 
beings  peopling  the  domain  of  vulgar  belief,  or  even  as  demoniacs. — 
Teut.  Myth.  iii.  1067. 


60  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

Patrick.' l  Columba  competes  with  the  Druids  in  his 
supernatural  powers  on  behalf  of  Christianity.2  Druidisra 
thus  came  into  contact  with  Christianity.  Mr.  Skene 
and  Mr.  O'Curry,  however,  are  inclined  to  think  that 
at  this  time  it  was  not  the  Druidism  of  CaBsar  and 
Pliny — it  was,  says  the  former  writer,  '  a  sort  of  fetich- 
ism  which  peopled  all  the  objects  of  nature  with 
malignant  beings  to  whose  agency  its  phenomena  were 
attributed.' 3  Mr.  O'Curry  gives  some  of  the  vast 
number  of  allusions  to  the  Druids  in  Irish  MSS.,  which 
contain  instances  of  contests  in  Druidical  spells,  of 
clouds  raised  by  incantations  of  Druidesses,  of  the  in- 
terpretation of  dreams,  of  the  raising  of  tempests,  of  the 
use  of  a  yew  wand  instead  of  oak  or  mistletoe,  of 
auguries  drawn  from  birds,  and  other  peculiar  rites 
and  beliefs ;  but  he  distinctly  repudiates  the  idea  that 
Irish  Druidism,  as  made  known  by  the  MSS.,  was  like 
the  classical  Druidism  in  its  adoption  of  human  sacrifice, 
or  in  its  priests  being  servants  of  any  special  positive 
worship.4 

It  is  difficult  to  contest  opinions  like  these,  but  they 
do  not  appear  to  be  borne  out  by  the  facts.  For 
instance,  on  the  question  of  human  sacrifice  the  Book  of 
Ballymote  tells  us  how  one  of  the  kings  brought  fifty 
hostages  from  Munster,  and  dying  before  he  reached  his 

1  Stokes's  Gaedelica,  p.  131. 

2  Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  ii.   115-117,  gives  the  principal  evi- 
dence under  this  head.     Cf.  Elton,  Origins  of  English  History,  pp. 
273-274. 

3  Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  ii.  118. 

4  O'Curry,  Manners  and  Customs  oftJic  Irish,  ii.  222-228. 


MYTHIC  INFLUENCE  OF  A  CONQUEKED  EACE      61 

palace,  the  hostages  were  buried  alive  around  the  grave.1 
The  evidence  of  Scottish  witchcraft,  already  quoted, 
is  clear  as  to  the  sacrifice  of  one  human  being  for 
another  in  case  of  sickness,  and  Mr.  Elton  says  that 
the  Welsh  and  Irish  traditions  contain  many  traces  of 
the  custom  of  human  sacrifice.  '  Some  of  the  penalties 
of  the  ancient  laws,'  he  says,  '  seemed  to  have  originated 
in  an  asre  when  the  criminal  was  offered  to  the  gods  : 

O  O  ' 

the  thief  and  the  seducer  of  women  were  burned  on  a 
pile  of  logs  or  cast  into  a  fiery  furnace ;  the  maiden 
who  forgot  her  duty  was  burned  or  drowned  or  sent 
adrift  to  sea.' 2  To  these  examples  must  be  added  the 
well-known  story  of  Vortigern  who,  on  the  recommenda- 
tion of  the  British  Druids,  sought  for  a  victim  to  sacri- 
fice at  the  foundation  of  his  castle ; 3  the  parallel  sacri- 
fice of  St.  Oran  in  lona  by  Columba,4  and  the  sacrifice 
of  the  first-born  of  children  and  flocks,  in  order  to 
secure  power  and  peace  in  all  their  tribes  and  to  obtain 
milk  and  corn  for  the  support  of  their  families.5 

These  facts  are  perhaps  sufficient  to  show  that  the 

1  O'Curry,  p.  cccxx ;  cf.  Elton,  Origins  of  English  History ,  p.  272. 

2  Origins  of  English  History,  p.  271.   Khys,  Celtic  Heathendom,  p. 
224,  says  : '  Irish  Druidism  absorbed  a  certain  amount  of  Christianity, 
and  it  would  be  a  problem  of  considerable  difficulty  to  fix  on  the 
point  where  it  ceased  to  be  Druidism  and  from  which  onwards  it 
could  be  said  to  be  Christianity  in  any  restricted  sense  of  that  term." 

3  Irish  Nennius,  cap.  40.     O'Curry  mentions  this  as  evidence  for 
the  differentiation  of  Irish  and  British  Druidism. — Manners  and 
Customs,  ii.  222 

4  Stokes's  Three  Middle  Irish  Homilies,  p.  119;   Rev.  Celt,  ii 
200  ;  Stat.  Ace.  of  Scotland,  vii.  321 ;  Pennant's  Tour,  ii.  298. 

5  Booh  of  Leinster,  quoted  by  Rhys,  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  201 . 


62  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

evidence  for  the  continuity  of  Druidism,  whatever 
Druidism  may  have  been,  meets  the  other  evidence  as 
to  the  presence  in  witchcraft  of  Druid  beliefs  and  prac- 
tices sufficiently  nearly  in  point  of  time  for  it  to  be  a 
reasonable  argument  to  affirm  that  witchcraft  is  the 
lineal  successor  of  Druidism.  The  one  point  necessary, 
then,  to  complete  the  argument  I  have  advanced  is,  that 
Druidism  must  be  identified  as  a  non- Aryan  cult.  I 
am  aware  that  this  point  still  awaits  much  investigation 
by  Celtic  philologists  and  historians,  but  in  the  meantime 
I  am  content  to  claim  that  considerable  weight  must  be 
given  to  Professor  Rhys's  twice  repeated  affirmation 
that  his  researches  go  to  prove  Druidism  to  be  of  non- 
Aryan  origin,1  especially  as  his  researches  lie  in  quite  a 
different  direction  to  my  own. 

Whether,  therefore,  we  rest  our  argument  upon  the 
parallels  to  be  found  between  witch  practices  and  beliefs 
and  non- Aryan  practices  and  beliefs,  or  upon  the  hypo- 
thesis that  the  initiation  necessary  to  the  performance 
of  witchcraft  is  in  reality  the  method  of  continuing 
Druidic  beliefs  and  practices  when  the  possibilities  of  con- 
tinuing them  by  race  descent  had  died  out,  there  is 
proof  enough  that  in  witchcraft  is  contained  the  survival 
of  non- Aryan  practices  and  beliefs — practices  and  beliefs, 
that  is,  which  the  non- Aryan  peoples  possessed  concern- 
ing themselves  and  their  own  powers. 

1  Rhys,  Celtic  Britain,  pp.  67-75  ;  Lectures  on  Welsh  Philology, 
p.  32  ;  compare  Celtic  Heathendom,  p.  216  etteq. ;  I  have  dealt  with 
the  institutional  side  of  Druidism  in  its  non- Aryan  origin  in  my  Village 
Community,  p.  104  et  seq. 


MYTHIC   INFLUENCE   OF   A   CONQUERED   RACE      68 

We  next  have  to  meet  the  question  as  to  the  race 
origin  of  fairy  beliefs,  in  so  far  as  they  are  parallel  to 
witch  beliefs.  If  witchcraft  represents  ancient  aborigi- 
nal belief  in  direct  descent  by  the  channels  just  ex- 
amined, what  part  of  the  same  aboriginal  belief  does 
fairycraft  represent,  and  how  is  its  separation  from 
witchcraft  to  be  accounted  for  ? 

The  theory  that  fairies  are  the  traditional  represen- 
tatives of  an  ancient  pigmy  race  has  met  with  consider- 
able support  from  folklorists.  It  is  needless  to  repeat 
all  the  arguments  in  support  of  this  theory  which  have 
been  advanced  during  the  past  twenty  years,  because 
they  are  contained  in  works  easily  accessible  and  well 
known.  But  it  is  important  to  note  that  these  beliefs 
must  have  originated  not  with  the  aboriginal  pigmy  race 
themselves,  but  with  the  conquering  race  who  over- 
powered them  and  drove  them  to  the  hills  and  out-parts 
of  the  land.  The  influence  of  the  despised  out-driven 
aborigines  did  not  cease  after  the  conflict  was  over.  It 
produced  upon  the  minds  of  their  conquerors  mythic  con- 
ceptions, which  have  during  the  lapse  of  time  become 
stereotyped  into  certain  well-defined  lines  of  fairy  lore. 

At  this  point  we  may  discuss  how  the  parallel  be- 
tween witchcraft  and  fairycraft  is  explained  by  the 
ethnological  characteristics  which  have  been  advanced. 
Witchcraft  has  been  explained  as  the  survival  of 
aboriginal  beliefs  from  aboriginal  sources.  Fairy  craft 
has  been  explained  as  the  survival  of  beliefs  about  the 
aborigines  from  Aryan  sources.  The  aborigines,  as  is 


64  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOEE 

proved  from  Indian  and  other  evidence,  not  only  be- 
lieved in  their  own  demoniacal  powers,  but  sought  in 
every  way  to  spread  this  belief  among  their  conquerors. 
Thus,  then,  the  belief  of  the  aborigines  about  themselves 
and  of  the  conquering  race  about  the  aborigines  would  be 
on  all  material  points  identical ;  and  by  interpreting  the 
essentials  of  witchcraft  and  of  fairycraft  as  the  survivals 
in  folklore  of  the  mythic  influence  of  a  conquered  race 
upon  their  conquerors  we  are  supported  by  the  facts 
which  meet  us  everywhere  in  folklore,  and  by  an  ex- 
planation which  alone  is  adequate  to  account  for  all  the 
phenomena.  It  has  been  held,  indeed,  by  Grimm  and 
others  that  witchcraft  is  a  direct  offshoot  from  fairy 
beliefs  consequent  upon  the  action  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  stamping  fairydom  with  a  connection  with 
the  devil.  But  if  this  argument  is  worth  anything  it 
would  account  for  the  fact  that  fairydorn,  after  throwing 
off  such  a  powerful  offshoot  as  witchcraft,  should  have 
itself  continued  in  undiminished  force  with  all  the  old 
beliefs  attached  to  it.  But  it  does  not  account  for  this 
difficulty.  On  the  other  hand,  the  explanation  I  have 
attempted  is  not  involved  with  such  a  difficulty.  The 
various  phenomena  fit  into  their  places  with  remarkable 
precision  ;  there  is  no  twisting  of  any  of  the  details,  and 
not  only  analogies  but  differences  are  accounted  for. 

I  am  tempted  to  put  this  argument  into  genea- 
logical form  to  show  more  clearly  the  lines  along 
which  we  have  travelled.  It  would  be  set  forth  as 
follow  : — 


MYTHIC   INFLUENCE    OF  A   CONQUERED   RACE      65 
Aboriginal  beliefs. 


Beliefs  by 
aborigines  as  to 
their  own  demoniacal 
powers. 

I 
Druidism. 


Aryan  beliefs 
about  the  demoniacal 
powers  of  aborigines. 


Blood  descent  of 
aborigines  ceases. 


I 

Initiatory  descent 

takes  the  place  of 

blood  descent. 


Witchcraft.        =         Fair}1  craft. 

! 

Survival  of  aboriginal  beliefs. 

I  do  not  suggest  that  this  table  should  be  hardened 
into  an  absolute  rule.  All  that  it  is  intended  for, 
and  all  that  folklore  can  attempt  at  present,  is  to  in- 
dicate some  of  the  results  which  may  be  attained 
by  a  close  and  systematic  study  of  its  details.  These 
details  in  some  departments  will  allow  of  something  like 
precision  in  their  arrangement ;  in  others  we  must  still 
grope  about  for  some  time  to  come  yet.  But  if  we 
attempt  precision  in  arrangement,  we  must  be  careful  not 
to  allow  it  to  become  the  means  of  detaching  any  items 
of  folklore  from  their  proper  place  amidst  all  the  other 
items.  Their  relationship  to  each  other  is,  indeed,  the 
only  means  by  which  we  may  trace  out  their  origins. 
The  neglect  of  this  principle  in  connection  with  the 
numerous  accounts  of  the  higher  divinities,  both  of 
classical  and  modern  times,  has  helped  to  bring  about 
the  idea  that  in  Europe  both  higher  and  lower  divinities 
belong  to  the  same  people. 


66  ETHNOLOGY   IN   FOLKLORE 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PRIMITIVE    BELIEF 

IT  would  seem  that  we  may  distinguish  in  the  pre- 
historic ages  of  man  certain  data  which  point  to  a  pre- 
tribal  society.  The  argument  as  it  stands  at  present 
is  not  one  to  insist  upon  with  too  much  precision,  either 
with  reference  to  its  illustration  of  earliest  man,  or  with 
reference  to  its  influence  on  later  man.  Rather,  it  must 
be  continually  borne  in  mind  that  the  evolution  of  society 
does  in  some  measure  point  back  to  an  early  phase  of 
extreme  localisation,  and  that  biological  evidence  strongly 
supports  such  a  view.  So  far  as  the  survey  of  primitive 
belief  has  proceeded  with  reference  to  the  origin  of 
certain  of  its  classes,  there  seems  to  be  some  proof  of  the 
same  course  of  evolution.  Thus  Dormer  says,  '  If  mono- 
theism had  been  an  original  doctrine,  traces  of  such  a 
belief  would  have  remained  among  all  peoples ;  if  the  cure 
of  disease  by  medication  had  been  the  original  method, 
such  a  useful  art  would  never  have  been  so  utterly  lost  that 
sorcery  should  wholly  usurp  its  place ;  in  savage  animism 
we  find  no  survivals  which  show  inconsistencies  with  it.' l 

1  Dormer,  Origin  of  Pri mitire  Superstitions,  pp.  386-387. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF  PKIMITIVE   BELIEF        67 

But  savage  animism  is  founded  upon,  and  essentially 
bound  up  with,  locality.  One  word  only  is  required  in 
proof  of  this,  and  for  this  purpose  we  naturally  turn  to 
Dr.  Tylor.  Studying  his  careful  analysis  of  animism, 
and  the  evidence  brought  forward  to  support  it,  it 
appears  clear  enough  that  the  emphasis  of  animism  lies 
in  its  localisation — '  the  local  spirits  which  belong  to 
mountain  and  rock  and  valley,  to  well  and  stream  and 
lake — in  brief,  to  those  natural  objects  which  in  early 
ages  aroused  the  savage  mind  to  mythological  ideas.' ' 
I  take  it  to  be  a  distinct  advance  in  culture  when 
mankind  began  to  separate  himself  from  local  worship. 
In  the  study  of  Semitic  religions  which  Professor 
Robertson  Smith  has  given  us,  he  has  touched  upon 
this  point  in  a  chapter  which  contains  many  valuable 
suggestions,  but  he  does  not  appear  to  me  to  mark  suffi- 
cient distinction  between  the  tribal  gods  which  are, 
according  to  his  evidence,  tending  to  become  local,  and 
the  primitive  local  gods  of  the  land  which  had  never 
become  tribal.2  The  distinction  is  an  important  one, 
and  has  a  definite  bearing  upon  the  ethnology  of  Semitic 
ritual.  It  must,  however,  be  approached  from  the  savage 
side.  No  one  has  paid  closer  attention  to  this  than 
Major  Ellis  in  his  studies  of  African  beliefs,  and  it  seems 
clear  from  these  that  the  transition  is  from  local  to  tribal, 
and  not  vice  versa.  '  The  deified  powers  in  nature,' 
says  Major  Ellis,  'the  rivers  and  lagoons,  being  necessarily 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  187. 

2  Religion  of  the  Semites,  cap.  iii. 


68  ETHNOLOGY   IN  FOLKLORE 

local,  would  in  course  of  time,  from  at  first  being  merely 
regarded  as  the  gods  of  the  district,  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  gods  of  the  people  living  in  the  district ; 
in  this  way  would  probably  arise  the  idea  of  national 
or  tribal  gods ;  so  that  eventually  the  gods,  instead  of 
being  regarded  as  being  interested  in  the  whole  of 
mankind,  would  come  to  be  regarded  as  being  interested 
in  separate  tribes  or  nations  alone.'  l  With  some  slight 
amendments  this  passage  fairly  interprets  the  evidence 
from  all  parts  of  the  savage  world,  and  I  have  been 
gradually  forced  to  the  conviction  that  the  greatest 
triumph  of  the  Aryan  race  was  its  emancipation  from 
the  principle  of  local  worship,  and  the  rise  of  the 
conception  of  gods  who  could  and  did  accompany  the 
tribes  wheresoever  they  travelled.  No  doubt  tribal 
gods  incline  to  become  local  once  more — to  have  a  fixed 
habitat,  a  sanctuary,  a  home  made  holy  by  the  presence 
of  the  god.  This  is  particularly  the  case  with  the 
Semitic  gods,  and  its  close  approximation  to  the  form 
of  belief  in  purely  local  deities  has  prevented  Professor 
Robertson  Smith  from  entering  upon  a  most  interesting 
phase  of  Semitic  ritual.  But  the  gods  of  the  Aryans  have 
never  been  quite  so  local  in  their  nature,  even  after  long 
residence  with  their  worshippers  in  much-loved  homes. 
All  the  local  haunts  of  the  Greek  gods  do  not  make 
Greek  gods  local — they  are  still  tribal  gods,  with  a 
special  local  home  for  the  time  being. 

It  is  not,  perhaps,  worth  while  pursuing  this  subject 

1  Ellis,  Tthi-sjfeakinff  Peoples,  p.  114. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF         69 

further  on  the  general  evidence.  It  would  occupy  much 
space  for  the  point  to  be  proved  in  detail,  but  there  is 
already  sufficient  illustration  of  it  in  the  text-books  of 
anthropology  to  allow  me  to  pass  on  to  the  special 
evidence  I  am  in  search  of.  Thus  we  find  that  Professor 
Rhys  draws  a  line  of  distinction  between  the  greater 
divinities  of  the  Celtic  pantheon,  who  lent  themselves  to 
localisation,  and  the  crowd  of  minor  divinities  who  were 
never  anything  else  than  genii  locorum.  Among  the 
latter  he  includes  '  the  spirits  of  particular  forests, 
mountain  tops,  rocks,  lakes,  rivers,  river-sources,  and  all 
springs  of  water  which  have  in  later  times  been  treated 
as  holy  wells.' l  To  these  must  be  added  all  those 
agricultural  deities,  the  ritual  of  whom  has  been 
examined  so  thoroughly  by  Mr.  Frazer.  Earth  deities, 
claiming  their  sacrifice  of  human  blood  ;  tree  deities, 
claiming  the  life  of  their  priest ;  corn  deities,  whose 
death  forms  part  of  their  own  cult ;  rain  deities,  claiming 
victims  for  their  service,  form  no  part  of  any  recognisable 
tribal  cult,  but  are  essentially  the  fixed  heritage  of  the 
places  where  they  originated  and  fructified. 

This  classification  of  the  local  deities  leads  up  to  an 
important  point  in  the  ethnology  of  folklore.  Turning 
back  to  Professor  Rhys's  group,  we  find  him  saying  of 
them  that  '  it  has  been  supposed,  and  not  without  reason, 
that  these  landscape  divinities  reacted  powerfully  on  the 
popular  imagination  in  which  they  had  their  existence 
by  imparting  to  the  physical  surroundings  of  the  Celt 

1   Celtic  Heathendom,  p.  105. 


70  ETHNOLOGY  IN   FOLKLORE 

the  charm  of  a  weird  and  unformulated  poetry.  But 
what  race  was  it  that  gave  the  Celtic  landscape  of  an- 
tiquity its  population  of  spirits  ?  The  Celtic  invaders 
of  Aryan  stock  brought  their  gods  with  them  to  the 
lands  they  conquered ;  but  as  to  the  innumerable 
divinities  attached,  so  to  say,  to  the  soil,  the  great 
majority  of  them  were  very  possibly  the  creations  of  the 
people  here  before  the  Celts.'1  I  would  interpret  in  the 
same  way  the  agricultural  deities  which  are  not  included 
in  Professor  Rhys's  dictum.  Without  some  such  inter- 
pretation it  is  difficult  to  account  for  the  savagery  of 
the  ritual  practised  in  their  worship,  or  for  its  exten- 
sive and  thoroughly  settled  forms.  Reckoning  from  the 
Aryan  occupation  of  eastern  and  northern  Europe,  there 
is  no  time  for  such  a  cult  to  have  developed  from  the 
primitive  pastoral  worship  of  the  Aryans,  even  if  it  is 
possible  to  assume,  as  it  would  be  necessary  to  do,  that 
pastoral  life  is  an  antecedent  to  agricultural  life. 
Against  such  an  assumption,  though  it  has  been  urged 
by  some  distinguished  scholars,  I  would  enter  the 
strongest  protest.  There  is  no  proof  of  it  in  anthro- 
pological evidence.  There  is  proof  of  pastoral  tribes 
settling  down,  as  the  Aryans  have  done,  as  the  over- 
lords of  aboriginal  agriculturists  ;  of  the  gradual  ex- 
tinction of  pastoral  life  in  the  development  of  settled 
tribal  life ;  of  the  final  extinction  of  tribal  life  altogether 
in  the  rise  of  the  village  community.  But  all  this  is  dis- 
tinctly antagonistic  to  the  idea  that  pastoral  life  is  older 

1  Rhys,  loc.  cit. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PRIMITIVE   BELIEF         71 

and  more  primitive  than  agricultural.  Connected  with 
agricultural  life  we  get  the  rudest  tribes  of  savages,  the 
rudest  forms  of  culture.  As  Mr.  Keary  has  said,  '  If 
the  remains  of  fetichism  could  be  so  vital,  fetichism  itself 
must  have  had  a  lengthened  sway  ;  but  the  people 
could  never  have  become  the  Aryan  nation  had  their 
notions  of  unity  been  confined  to  the  local  fetish  and  the 
village  commune.' l  Let  us  once  clearly  understand  that 
the  local  fetichism  to  be  found  in  Aryan  countries 
simply  represents  the  undying  faiths  of  the  older  race, 
which  the  Aryans  at  last  incorporated  into  their  own 
higher  beliefs,  and  the  difficulties  lying  in  the  way  of 
accounting  for  Aryan  progress,  which  have  been 
recognised  but  not  met,  seem  to  vanish. 

The  localisation  of  primitive  belief,  then,  is,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  an  important  factor  in  the  consideration  of 
survivals.  Given  the  natural  object  which  originated,  in 
the  rude  mind  of  early  man,  a  set  of  beliefs,  and  the 
continued  existence  of  the  natural  object  would  greatly 
assist  the  continued  existence  of  the  beliefs.  River 
worship  is  a  case  in  point.  It  is  found  almost  even-- 
where among  people  of  a  rude  or  savage  culture,  and 
its  origin  is  not  far  to  seek.  Thus  among  some  African 
tribes  '  there  are  many  deities  bearing  the  name  of 
Prah,  all  of  whom  are  spirits  of  the  river  Prah,  called 
by  the  natives  Bohsum-Prah.  At  each  town  or  con- 
siderable village  upon  its  banks  sacrifice  is  held  on  a 
day  about  the  middle  of  October  to  Prah  ;  and  from  the 

1   Outlines  of  Primitive  Belief,  p.  110. 


72  ETHNOLOGY   IN   FOLKLORE 

fact  of  the  one  day  being  common  to  all  the  peoples 
dwelling  on  the  river,  and  that  the  sacrificial  ceremonies 
are  the  same  throughout,  it  seems  evident  that  originally 
this  worship  was  established  for  one  great  deity  of  the 
river,  although  now  the  inhabitants  of  each  village 
believe  in  the  separate  spirit  of  the  Prah,  who  resides 
in  some  part  of  the  river  near  their  hamlet.  Everywhere 
along  the  river  the  priests  of  these  gods  officiate  in  groups 
of  three,  two  male  and  one  female,  an  arrangement 
which  is  peculiar  to  Prah.  .  .  .  The  usual  sacrifice  was 
two  human  adults,  one  male  and  one  female.  .  .  . 
Crocodiles  are  sacred  to  Prah.' l 

This  is  not  far  removed  from  the  Esthonian  belief. 
In  Esthonia  there  is  a  particular  stream  which  has  long 
been  the  object  of  reverence — the  Wohhanda.  In  the 
olden  time  no  Esthoniaii  would  fell  any  tree  that  grew 
011  its  banks  or  break  one  of  the  reeds  that  fringed  its 
watercourse.  If  he  did  he  would  die  within  the  year. 
The  brook,  along  with  the  spring  that  gave  it  birth,  was 
purified  periodically,  and  it  was  believed  that  if  dirt  was 
thrown  into  either,  bad  weather  would  be  the  result. 
Tradition  speaks  of  offerings — sometimes  of  little  chil- 
dren— having  been  made  to  Wohhanda  ;  the  river  god 
being  a  little  man  in  blue  and  yellow  stockings,  some- 
times visible  to  mortal  eye,  resident  in  the  stream  and 
in  the  habit  of  occasionally  rising  out  of  it.2 

People  with  beliefs  like  these  do  not  readily  give 

1  Ellis,  Tshi-speaking  Peoples,  p.  64  ;  cf.  pp.  32,  33. 

2  Latham,  Descriptive  Ethnology,  i.  418. 


THE   LOCALISATION  OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF        73 

them  up,  because  the  power  of  the  river  to  work  harm 
does  not  die  out  as  race  succeeds  race  among  the  in- 
habitants of  river  districts.  When  in  the  Solomon 
Islands  a  man  accidentally  falls  into  the  river  and  a 
shark  attacks  him,  he  is  not  allowed  to  escape.  If  he 
succeeds  in  eluding  the  shark  his  fellow-tribesmen  will 
throw  him  back  to  his  doom,  believing  him  to  be  marked 
out  for  sacrifice  to  the  god  of  the  river.1  But  this  ex- 
planation exactly  fits  the  superstition  against  rescuing 
a  drowning  person  which  is  made  so  familiar  to  us  by 
Scott's  story  '  The  Pirate.' 2  The  form  of  the  peasant 
belief  may  be  thus  given  :  '  Among  the  seamen  of 
Orkney  and  Shetland  it  was  deemed  unlucky  to  rescue 
persons  from  drowning,  since  it  was  held  as  a  matter  of 
religious  faith  that  the  sea  is  entitled  to  certain  victims, 
and  if  deprived  would  avenge  itself  on  those  who 
interfere.'3  * 

I  will  now  turn  to  some  examples  of  river  worship 
in  Great  Britain.  The  existence  of  water  spirits  is  a 
well-known  belief,4  but  I  am  desirous  of  noting  rather 
the  deities  of  special  rivers.  It  is  curious  that  in  Scot- 
land persons  who  bore  the  name  of  the  river  Tweed 
were  supposed  to  have  as  an  ancestor  the  genie  of  the 
river  of  that  name.5  The  river  Auld  Gramdt,  or  Ugly 
Burn,  in  the  county  of  Ross,  springing  from  Loch 

1  Codrington,  The  Melanesians,  p.  179. 

2  Folklore  Journal,  vii.  44 ;  ibid.  iii.  185. 

3  Tudor's  Orkney  and  Shetland,  p.  176. 

4  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitions  of  Scotland,  p.  543. 

5  Rogers,  Social  Life  in  Scotland,  iii.  336. 


74  ETHNOLOGY  IN    FOLKLORE 

Glaish,  was  regarded  with  awe  as  the  abode  of  the 
water-horse  and  other  spiritual  beings.1  The  river  Spey 
is  spoken  of  as  '  she,'  and  it  is  a  common  belief  that  at 
least  one  victim  is  necessary  every  year.2 

One  of  the  principal  English  river  divinities  has 
been  figured  on  a  Roman  pavement.  This  pavement  is 
the  well-known  one  at  Lydney  Park,  Gloucestershire,  on 
the  western  bank  of  the  Severn,  in  the  territory  of  the 
ancient  Silures.  Three  inscriptions  are  preserved,  as 
follows : 

(1)  DEVO  NODENTI 

(2)  D.  M.  NODOXTI 

(3)  DEO  NUDENTE  M. 

and  Professor  Rhys  has  discussed  their  philological  im- 
portance.3 

The  remains  of  the  temple  at  Lydney,  for  such  it 
is  generally  considered,  connects  this  god  with  the  sea, 
or  rather  with  the  worship  of  water,  and  in  this  case 
with  the  river  Severn,  in  the  following  particulars. 
The  mosaic  floor  displays  representations  of  sea  serpents 
or  the  tcr)Tea  accompanying  Glaucus  in  the  Greek  my- 
thology, and  fishes  supposed  to  stand  for  the  salmon  of 
the  Severn ;  an  ugly  band  of  red  surrounds  the  mouth 
of  a  funnel  leading  into  the  ground  beneath,  which  hole 
is  supposed  to  have  been  used  for  libations  to  the  god. 
A  small  plaque  of  bronze  found  on  the  spot  gives  us 
probably  a  representation  of  the  god  himself.  The  prin- 

1  Dalyell,  op.  cit.  p.  544.  '*  Folklore,  iii.  72. 

3  Celtic  Heathendom,  p.  11!6. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PRIMITIVE   BELIEF        75 

cipal  figure  is  a  youthful  deity  crowned  with  rays  like 
Phoebus  and  standing  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  four  horses. 
On  either  side  the  winds  are  typified  by  a  winged 
genius  floating  along,  and  the  rest  of  the  space  is  left  to 
two  tritons,  while  a  detached  piece,  probably  of  the 
same  bronze,  represents  another  triton  and  a  fisherman 
who  has  just  succeeded  in  hooking  a  salmon.1 

Of  course  this  work  is  Roman,  and  must  therefore 
bear  the  stamp  of  the  Roman  interpretation  of  the 
local  god.  It  would  be  conventionalised  to  the  Roman 
standard  of  the  water  god,  Neptune.  I  do  not  at  all 
consider  that  we  have  here  the  British  embodiment  of 
the  god,  but  simply  the  Roman  interpretation  of  the 
British  belief-— the  description  of  the  British  cult  in 
monumental  records  instead  of  in  literary  records. 

We  pass,  however,  from  archaeology  to  folklore. 
Professor  Rhys  identifies  the  epigraphical  form  of  the 
Severn  god's  name,  Nodens,  with  the  Welsh  Lludd  and 
with  the  Irish  Nuada.  The  first  name  brings  us  to 
the  legendary  King  Lud,  who  is  said  to  have  built 
London,  and  whose  name  preserved  in  our  Ludgate  Hill 
is  sufficient  to  attest  the  veracity  of  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth's  record  that  one  of  the  Welsh  names  for  London 
was  Caer  Ludd,  or  Lud's  Fort.  '  The  probability,'  says 
Professor  Rhys,  '  that  as  a  temple  on  a  hill  near  the 
Severn  associated  him  with  that  river  in  the  west,  so 
a  still  more  ambitious  temple  on  a  hill  connected  him 

1  I  take  this  summary  from  Professor  Rhys,  loc.  cit. ;  the  whole 
find  has  been  described  in  a  separate  volume,  and  profusely  illus- 
trated by  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Bathurst  and  C.  W.  King. 


76  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

with  the  Thames  in  the  east ' — a  probability  which  is 
confirmed  by  the  tradition,  so  often  quoted,  that  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  has  taken  the  place  of  a  heathen  temple. 

The  second  name,  the  Irish  Nuada,  takes  us  to  the 
Boyne,  which  was  known  as  Righ  Mna  Nuadhat — 
that  is,  the  wrist  or  forearm  of  Nuadhat's  wife.1  The 
identification  of  Nuada  as  a  river  god  is  clearly  shown 
by  the  legend  connected  with  .the  well  of  the  Blessed 
Trinity  at  which  the  Boyne  rises.  One  of  the  miracu- 
lous virtues  of  this  well  was  that  anyone  who  approached 
it  except  the  monarch  and  his  three  cup-bearers  was 
instantly  deprived  of  sight.  Boan,  the  queen  of  Nuada, 
determined  to  test  the  mystical  powers,  and  not  only 
approached  the  well  and  defied  its  powers  but  passed 
three  times  round  it  to  the  left,  as  was  customary  in 
incantations.  Upon  completion  of  the  third  round  the 
waters  rose,  mutilated  the  daring  queen,  and,  as  she  fled 
to  the  sea,  followed  her  until  she  reached  the  present 
mouth  of  the  river.2 

The  river  Dee,  near  Chester,  was  supposed  to  possess 
characteristics  in  the  time  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis  which 
mark  its  god-like  attributes.  '  The  inhabitants  of  those 
parts  assert  that  the  waters  of  this  river  change  their 

1  O'Curry,  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  Irish,  iii.  156. 

-'  Wilde's  Beauties  of  the  Boyne,  p.  24,  from  the  '  Book  of  Lecan  ' 
and  the  '  Book  of  Ballymote.'  Near  the  bridge  at  Stackallan  a  Patron 
used  to  be  held,  and  it  was  customary  for  the  people  to  swim  their 
cattle  across  the  river  at  this  spot  as  a  charm  against  fairies  and 
certain  diseases. — Wilde,  loc.  cit.  p.  171.  A  similar  legend  is  told  of 
the  Shannon. — O'Curry,  Manners  and  Customs,  ii.  143,  144  ;  cf.  Rev. 
Celtique,  vi.  244. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF        77 

fords  every  month,  and  as  it  inclines  more  towards 
England  or  Wales  they  can  with  certainty  prognosti- 
cate which  nation  will  be  successful  or  unfortunate 
during  the  year.' l  Professor  Rhys  draws  attention  to 
the  name  of  another  river — the  Belisama — which  marks 
it  out  as  one  that  was  formerly  considered  divine,  the 
name  occurring  in  inscriptions  found  in  Gaul  as  that  of 
the  goddess  equated  with  the  Minerva  of  Italy.2  If 
this  river  is  to  be  identified  with  the  Ribble,  as  Pro- 
fessor Rhys  suggests,  folklore  has  preserved  some- 
thing of  the  old  cult.  This  river  has  a  spirit  called 
Peg  o'  Nell,  and  a  spring  in  the  grounds  of  Waddow 
bears  her  name  and  is  graced  by  a  stone  image,  now 
headless,  which  is  said  to  represent  her.  A  tradition 
connects  this  Pego'  Nell  with  an  ill-used  servant  at  Wad- 
dow Hall,  who,  in  revenge  for  her  mistress's  successful 
malediction  in  causing  her  death,  was  inexorable  in 
demanding  every  seven  years  a  life  to  be  quenched  in 
the  waters  of  the  Ribble.  '  Peg's  night '  was  the  closing 
night  of  the  septenniate,  and  when  it  came  round,  unless 
a  bird,  a  cat,  or  a  dog  was  drowned  in  the  stream,  some 
human  being  was  certain  to  fall  a  victim  there.3  The 
river  Tees  has  also  a  sprite,  which  is  called  Peg  Powler, 
a  sort  of  Lorelei,  says  Henderson,  with  green  tresses 

1  Giraldus,  Itinerary  through  Wales,  ii.  cap.  xi. ;  cf.  Rev.  Cel- 
tique,  ii.  2-5,  for  the  distribution  of  '  Dee '  as  a  river  name  and  its 
mythological  meaning. 

*  Celtic  Britain,  2nd  edit.  p.  68. 

8  Henderson,  Folklore  of  Northern  Counties,  p.  265  ;  Harland 
and  Wilkinson's  Lancashire  Folklore,  p.  89. 


78  ETHNOLOGY   IN  FOLKLORE 

and  an  insatiable  desire  for  human  life.  The  foam  or 
froth  which  is  often  seen  floating  on  the  higher  portion 
of  the  Tees  in  large  masses  is  called  '  Peg  Fowler's  suds/ 
and  the  finer,  less  sponge-like  froth  is  called  '  Peg  Pow- 
ler's  cream.' l  Children  were  still  warned  in  Mr.  Den- 
ham's  days  from  playing  on  the  banks  of  the  river  by 
threats  that  Peg  Powler  would  drag  them  into  the  water.  * 
The  Yore,  near  Middleham,  is  said  to  be  much  infested 
with  a  horrid  kelpie  or  water-horse,  who  rises  from  the 
stream  at  evening  and  ramps  along  the  meadows  search- 
ing for  prey,  and  it  is  imagined  that  the  kelpie  claims 
at  least  one  human  victim  annually.3 

These  and  the  hill  deities  are  essentially  inimical 
to  man,  but  the  local  deities  resident  in  wells  are 
friendly.  Professor  Robertson  Smith  has  drawn  from 
the  Semitic  facts  sufficient  general  evidence  of  the  rise 
of  well  or  spring  worship,4  identifying  it  with  the 
agricultural  life  of  aborigines  who  had  not  yet  developed 
the  idea  of  a  heavenly  god.  It  will  be  for  us  to  ex- 
amine the  evidence  in  a  European  country,  and  suffi- 
cient examples  are  to  be  found  in  the  British  Isles  for 
the  purpose. 

It  is  not  true  of  many  forms  of  popular  superstition, 
though  it  is  frequently  stated  to  be  true,  that  they  pre- 
vail universally  through  the  country.  But  in  the  case 
of  well  worship  it  may  be  asserted  with  some  confidence 

1  Henderson,  p.  265.  2  Denkam  Tracts. 

3  Longstaffe,  Ricltmondshire,  p.  96  ;  Barker's  Wentleydale,  p.  286. 

4  Religion  of  the  Semites,  cap.  iii. ;  cf.  p.  99. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF        79 

that  it  prevails  in  every  county  of  the  three  kingdoms, 
and  this  fact  necessitates  a  very  careful  inquiry  as  to  its 
origin.  A  purely  local  cult,  like  that  connected  with 
river  worship,  can  be  accounted  for  by  appealing  to  its 
special  character  as  a  belief  that  crops  up  only  here  and 
there  in  isolation.  The  case  is  altogether  different  when 
dealing  with  a  general  cult  everywhere  prevalent.  It 
might  have  originated  with  the  incoming  of  any  of  the 
dominating  forces  of  culture — with  Christianity,  with  the 
Aryan  conquest  by  Teuton  and  Celt.  In  fact,  what  we 
have  first  to  reckon  with  in  examining  into  its  origin  is 
its  general  prevalence.  The  question  forms  itself  in  the 
following  way  :  Did  such  a  worship  originate  from  above 
and  spread  downwards  among  the  people  until  it  became 
universal,  or  did  it  begin  from  the  people  and  penetrate 
upwards  ?  Of  course  the  question  put  in  these  terms 
does  not  indicate  how  important  it  is  to  endeavour  to 
obtain  an  answer  to  it.  But  this  is  the  first  step,  and 
we  may  presently  translate  it  into  more  definite. terms. 
Of  the  antiquity  of  the  custom  we  are  assured  by 
the  well-known  prohibitions  of  it  by  the  Saxon  clergy 
and  by  Canute,  and  this  also  certifies  to  its  general 
prevalence,  while  its  incorporation  into  the  Eoman 
Catholic  ritual  of  Ireland  1  indicates  that  its  influence 

1  '  No  religious  place  in  Ireland  could  be  without  a  holy  well. 
Otway,  Sketches  in  Hrris,  p.  213 ;  cf.  Proc.  Roy.  Hist,  and  Arch. 
Soc.  Ireland,  4th  Ser.,  ii.  268,  where  the  evidence  on  the  subject  is 
summarised  very  well.  St.  Columbkille  is  said  to  have  '  sained  three 
hundred  well  springs  that  were  swift.'— Whitley  Stokes,  Three 
Middle  Irish  Homilies. 


80  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

has  the  capacity,  at  all  events,  to  penetrate  upwards. 
A  worship  that  was  formally  and  officially  prohibited 
in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  and  has  been  for- 
mally accepted  in  modern  times  could  not,  under  any 
circumstances,  have  been  brought  over  by,  and  become 
prevalent  through  the  medium  of,  the  Christian  Church. 

Any  further  consideration  of  its  origin  from  Chris- 
tian influences  seems  to  me  quite  unnecessary,  though 
there  are  other  arguments  which  might  be  put.  We 
come,  then,  to  the  influence  of  Aryan  culture,  which, 
spreading  itself,  as  its  speech  indicates,  all  over  the 
land,  is  a  vera  causa  for  such  a  general  cult  as  well 
worship.  But  the  evidence,  when  treated  geographically, 
reveals  a  state  of  things  which  in  the  end  will  compel 
us  to  conclude  that  Aryan  culture  received,  rather  than 
generated,  well  worship  in  Britain. 

Commencing  with  the  Teutonic  centres  of  England, 
the  middle  and  south-eastern  counties  almost  fix  the 
boundary  of  one  form  of  well  worship — a  form  which  has 
lost  all  local  colour,  all  distinct  ritual,  and  remains  only' 
in  the  dedication  of  the  well  or  spring  to  a  saint  of  the 
Christian  Church,  in  the  tradition  of  its  name  as  a  '  holy 
well,'  or  else  in  the  memory  of  some  sort  of  reverence 
formerly  paid  to  the  waters,  which  in  many  cases  are 
nameless.  From  the  coast  of  Sussex,  Kent,  Essex,  Suffolk, 
and  Norfolk,  westwards  through  the  land  occupied  by 
the  South  Saxons  and  Middle  English  until  the  territory 
of  West  Wales,  Wales,  and  the  northern  folk  is  reached, 
examples  are  met  of  wells  dedicated  to  some  form  of 


81 

ancient  reverence  not  sufficiently  distinct  to  stamp  the 
nature  of  the  cult. 

That  Teutonic  England  should  be  thus  marked  off, 
as  we  shall  presently  see  by  examples,  from  the  rest  of 
Britain  and  Ireland,  is  a  significant  fact  in  favour  of 
the  argument  that  the  Teutons  did  not  bring  well 
worship  with  them,  for  in  the  very  centres  of  their 
settlements  and  homes  its  survivals  are  found  in  almost 
the  last  stages  of  decay.  At  one  place  on  the  coast, 
however,  an  example  is  found  where  some  details  of 
local  ritual  are  still  preserved.  This  is  at  Bonchurch 
in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  where,  on  St.  Boniface's  Day,  the 
well  is  decorated  with  flowers.1  We  meet  with  nothing 
of  this  kind,  however,  until  we  arrive  nearer  Wales — 
namely,  in  Derbyshire,  Staffordshire,  Worcestershire, 
and  Shropshire.  Here  is  the  region  of  garland-dressing, 
and  the  practice  has  been  frequently  described.  In 
Worcestershire  and  Staffordshire  the  custom  is  simple. 
In  Derbyshire  and  Shropshire  other  practices  occur  in 
connection  with  the  well-dressing.  For  instance,  at  the 
holy  well  at  Dale  Abbey  in  the  former  county  the 
devotee  goes  on  Good  Friday  between  twelve  and  three 
o'clock,  drinks  the  water  three  times,  and  wishes.2  This 
may  be  only  a  survival  of  monastic  practice,  but  in  Shrop- 
shire the  differentiation  is  more  marked.  Garland-dress- 
ing, though  found  in  the  eastern  parts  of  the  county,  is 

1  Tomkins,  Hist,  of  Isle  of  Wight,  ii.  121.     lean  make  nothing 
of  the  Walsingham  wishing- wells  except  a  derivation  from  monastic 
ceremonies.     See  the  custom  in  Brand,  ii.  370. 

2  Antiquary,  xxi.  97. 

G 


82  ETHNOLOGY   IN  FOLKLORE 

almost  entirely  absent  from  the  western,  where  wishing 
and  healing  wells  are  found.1  At  Rorrington,  a  town- 
ship in  the  parish  of  Chirbury,  was  a  holy  well  at  which 
a  wake  was  celebrated  on  Ascension  Day.  The  well 
was  adorned  with  a  bower  of  green  boughs,  rushes,  and 
flowers,  and  a  maypole  was  set  up.  The  people  walked 
round  the  well,  dancing  and  frolicking  as  they  went. 
They  threw  pins  into  the  well  to  bring  good  luck  and 
to  preserve  them  from  being  bewitched,  and  they  also 
drank  some  of  the  water.  Cakes  were  also  eaten ;  they 
were  round  flat  buns  from  three  to  four  inches  across, 
sweetened,  spiced,  and  marked  with  a  cross,  and  they 
were  supposed  to  bring  good  luck  if  kept.2 

In  this  instance  garland-dressing  is  associated  with 
other  significant  ceremonies,  and  associated  so  closely 
as  to  suggest  that  all  parts  of  the  ritual  are  equally 
ancient.  Now,  in  Shropshire  Welsh  influence  is  dis- 
tinctly felt,  and  little  patches  of  Welsh  population, 
locally  known  as  Welsh eries,  exist  to  this  day.  I  shall 
leave  this  part  of  our  examination  of  Shropshire  well 
worship  with  the  observation  that  the  evidence  links  on 
the  more  elaborate  customs  there  found  with  the  simple 
customs  found  in  middle  and  south-eastern  England,  and 
I  shall  return  to  Shropshire  later  on. 

Where  the  waters  of  the  wells  in  the  district  just 
examined  are  used  for  healing  powers,  it  is  almost  in- 
variably the  case  that  the  disease  to  be  cured  is  sore 

1  Burne,  Shropshire  Folklore,  p.  414. 
*  Burue,  op.  cit.  p.  434. 


THE   LOCALISATION  OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF        88 

eyes  ;  and  Miss  Burne,  who  noticed  this  peculiarity  in  the 
Shropshire  wells,  has  made  the  acute  suggestion  that  a 
legend  in  the  prose  Edda  which  tells  how  Odin  gave  his 
eye  in  return  for  a  draught  of  water  from  the  wisdom- 
giving  well  of  Mimir,  might  perhaps  account  for  it.1  I 
think  it  does;  and  we  have  in  this  parallel  between 
English  custom  and  Scandinavian  myth  the  evidence  I 
am  in  search  of,  showing  that  Teutonic  influences  on  well 
worship  did  in  fact  exist,  though  they  were  not  powerful 
enough  to  keep  well  worship  up  as  a  cult  in  that  part 
of  the  country  where  Teutonic  people  were  most  thickly 
settled. 

We  next  turn  to  northern  England,  where  the  popu- 
lation, Teutonic  and  Celtic  of  Aryan  folk  and  the  non- 
Aryan  aborigines,  were  more  mixed.  The  connection 
between  the  customs  of  well  worship  there  and  those 
of  the  district  just  examined  is  established  by  the 
existence  of  garland-dressing  in  North  Lancashire, 
Westmoreland,2  and  on  the  borders.3  Next  we  must 
examine  the  new  features,  which  are  significant.  At 
Sefton  in  Lancashire  it  was  customary  for  passers-by  to 
drop  into  St.  Helen's  Well  a  new  pin  for  good  luck  or  to 
secure  the  favourable  issue  of  an  expressed  wish,  and  by 
the  turning  of  the  pin-point  to  the  north  or  to  any  other 
point  of  the  compass  conclusions  were  drawn  as  to  the 
fidelity  of  lovers,  date  of  marriage,  and  other  love  matters.4 
At  Brindle  is  a  well  dedicated  to  St.  Ellin,  where  on  the 


1  Shropshire  Folklore,  p  422.  z  Ibid,  p  414 

3  Henderson,  Folklore,  p.  3.  4  Antiq.  xxi. 


xxi.  197. 
o  2 


84  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 

patron  day  pins  are  thrown  into  the  water.1  Pin-wells, 
as  they  may  be  called,  after  the  popular  name  given  to 
them  in  some  places,  also  existed  at  Jarrow  and  Wooler  in 
Northumberland,  at  Brayton,  Minchmore,  Kayingham, 
and  Mount  Grace  in  Yorkshire.2 

Henderson  informs  us  that  '  the  country  girls 
imagine  that  the  well  is  in  charge  of  a  fairy  or  spirit 
who  must  be  propitiated  by  some  offering,  and  the  pin 
presents  itself  as  the  most  ready  or  convenient,  besides 
having  a  special  suitableness  as  being  made  of  metal.'  3 
This  clearly  indicates  that  the  offering,  in  the  mind  of 
the  peasantry,  was  to  be  a  part  of  their  clothes.  At 
Great  Cotes  and  Winterton  in  Lincolnshire,  Newcastle 
and  Benton  in  Northumberland,  Newton  Kyme,  Thoi-p 
Arch,  and  Gargrave  in  Yorkshire,  pieces  of  rag,  cloth, 
or  ribbon  take  the  place  of  the  pins,  and  are  tied  to 
bushes  adjoining  the  wells,4  while  near  Newton,  at 
the  foot  of  Roseberry  Topping,  the  shirt  or  shift  of 
the  devotee  was  thrown  into  the  well,  and  according  to 
whether  it  floated  or  sank  so  would  the  sickness  leave 
or  be  fatal,  while  as  an  offering  to  the  saint,  a  rag  of  the 
shirt  is  torn  off  and  left  hanging  on  the  briars  there- 
abouts.5 

It  is  clear  that  while  there  is  something  in  common 

1  Antiq.  xxi.  197. 

2  Antiq.  xxii.  66,  67  ;  xxiii.  77,  112,  113  ;  xxiv.  27  ;  Henderson, 
Folklore,  p.  231. 

1  Henderson,  Folklore,  p.  230. 

*  Antiq.  xxi.  265 ;  xxii.  30 ;  xxiii.  23,  77  ;  xxiv.  27. 

*  Gent.  Mag.  Lib.,  Superstitions,  pp.  143,  147 ;  Brand,  ii.  380. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PRIMITIVE   BELIEF        85 

between  the  customs  attending  well  worship  all  over 
England,  a  line  of  distinction  has  to  be  drawn  as  we 
proceed  further  north.  That  rag- wells  are  the  ancestors 
in  custom  of  pin-wells  scarcely  needs  suggestion,  but  I 
think  we  may  go  on  to  suggest  that  the  bushes  growing 
around  the  sacred  wells  in  the  north  are  the  ancestors 
in  custom  of  the  bushes  brought  to  decorate  the  wells  in 
the  south,  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  where 
there  are  bushes  adjoining  the  wells,  dressing  with  gar- 
lands does  not  take  place.  In  the  north,  too,  it  must  be 
noted  that  some  wells  were  under  the  protection  of  the 
fairies  or  some  specially  named  sprite,  as  at  Bray  ton, 
Harpham,  Holderness,  and  Atwick  in  Yorkshire,  and 
Wooler  in  Northumberland.  The  course  of  well  worship 
in  Teutonic  England,  then,  may  be  traced  from  the 
examples  of  simple  reverence  in  the  south  and  east,  to 
examples  of  garland-dressing  and  pin-offerings  towards 
the  Welsh  borders,  and  to  examples,  first  of  garland- 
dressing  and  pin-offerings,  and  finally  to  the  parent 
form  of  rag-bush  wells  towards  the  northern  border. 
Now,  rag-bushes  have  a  distinct  place  in  anthropological 
evidence  which  must  be  examined  presently.  In  the 
meantime  we  carry  on  our  investigations  of  well  worship 
in  Britain  by  turning  to  the  forms  of  the  cult  in  the 
Celtic-speaking  districts. 

For  this  purpose  we  once  more  take  up  the  Shrop- 
shire evidence,  in  order  to  pursue  it  from  its  English  to 
its  Welsh  side.  St.  Oswald's  Well  at  Oswestry  is  used 
for  wishing  and  divination.  One  rite,  says  Miss  Burne,  is 


86  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

to  go  to  the  well  at  midnight,  take  some  water  up  in  the 
hand  and  drink  part  of  it,  at  the  same  time  forming  a 
wish  in  the  mind,  throw  the  rest  of  the  water  upon  a  par- 
ticular stone  at  the  back  of  the  well,  and  if  the  votary 
can  succeed  in  throwing  all  the  water  left  in  his  hand 
upon  this  stone  without  touching  any  other  spot,  his 
wish  will  be  fulfilled.  Other  forms  of  the  ceremony  to 
be  adopted  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  the  desired  end 
are  described,1  but  they  are  less  distinctive  than  the  one 
quoted,  the  point  of  which  is  the  sprinkling  of  a  special 
stone  with  the  water  from  the  well.  Another  element  is 
introduced  in  the  case  of  the  well  on  the  Devil's  Cause- 
way between  Ruckley  and  Acton.  Here,  according  to 
popular  belief,  the  devil  and  his  imps  appear  in  the  form 
of  frogs  ;  three  frogs  are  always  seen  together,  and  these 
are  the  imps,  the  largest  frog,  representing  the  devil, 
appearing  but  seldom.2  Here  for  the  first  time  we  find 
the  presiding  spirit  of  the  well  represented  in  animal 
form. 

Pin-wells  in  Wales  are  met  with  at  Rhosgoch  in 
Montgomeryshire,3  St.  Cynhafal's  Well  in  Denbighshire, 
St.  Barruc's  Well  on  Barry  Island,  near  Cardiff,  Ffynon 
Gwynwy  spring  in  Carnarvonshire,  and  a  well  near 
Penrhos.4  A  new  departure  in  the  ritual  of  well 

1  Burne,  Shropshire  Folklore,  p.  428  ;  other  Shropshire  examples 
are  given  in  Antiq.  xxii.  253. 

2  Burne,  op.  tit.  p.  416  ;  cf.  the  Oxfordshire  frog-prince  story 
Antiq.  xxii.  68. 

*  Antiq.  xxii.  253. 

4  Wirt  Sikes,  British  Goblins,  pp.  351,  352,  356. 


t   frW- 
.f 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PRIMITIVE   BELIEF        87 

worship,  however,  occurs  in  connection  with  St.  Tegla's 
well,  about  halfway  between  Wrexham  and  Ruthin. 
This  well  is  resorted  to  for  the  cure  of  epilepsy.  The 
custom  is  for  the  patient  to  repair  to  the  well  after  sun- 
set and  wash  himself  in  its  waters ;  then,  having  made 
an  offering  by  throwing  fourpence  into  the  water,  to 
walk  round  the  well  three  times  and  thrice  repeat  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  He  then  offers  a  cock,  or  when  the 
patient  is  a  woman,  a  hen.  The  bird  is  carried  in  a 
basket  first  round  the  well,  then  round  the  church. 
After  this  the  patient  enters  the  church,  creeps  under 
the  altar,  and  making  the  Bible  his  pillow  and  the  com- 
munion cloth  his  coverlet,  remains  there  till  break  of  day. 
In  the  morning,  having  made  a  further  offering  of  six- 
pence, he  leaves  the  cock  and  departs.  Should  the  bird 
die  it  is  supposed  that  the  disease  has  been  transferred 
to  it,  and  the  man  or  woman  consequently  cured.1 
Another  and  still  more  remarkable  ceremony  appertains 
to  the  well  of  St.  ^Elian,  not  far  from  Bettws  Abergeley 
in  Denbighshire.  Near  the  well  resided  a  woman  who 
officiated  as  a  kind  of  priestess.  Anyone  who  wished  to 
inflict  a  curse  upon  an  enemy  resorted  to  this  priestess, 
and  for  a  trifling  sum  she  registered,  in  a  book  kept  for 
the  purpose,  the  name  of  the  person  on  whom  the  curse 
was  wished  to  fall.  A  pin  was  then  dropped  into  the  well 
in  the  name  of  the  victim,  and  the  curse  was  complete.2 

1  Arch.   Camb.,  1st  Ser.,  i.  184 ;  Wirt  Sikes,  British  Goblins,  p. 
329. 

2  Eoberts,  Cambrian  Pop.  Antiq.  p.  246 ;  Wirt  Sikes,  op.  cit.  p. 
355  ;  Arch.  Camb.,  1st  Ser.,  i.  46. 


88  ETHNOLOGY   IN  FOLKLORE 

It  is  obvious  that  while  the  ritual  of  well  worship 
in  Wales  is  connected  by  some  of  its  details,  notably 
the  offering  of  pins,  with  the  ritual  of  English  well 
worship,  it  contains  perfectly  distinctive  elements,  all 
of  which  tend  towards  the  interpretation  of  the  cult  as 
of  a  rude  and  primitive  type.  The  presiding  spirit  of 
the  well  in  animal  form  in  one  example  equates  with  the 
offering  to  the  presiding  spirit  of  a  bird  in  another 
example,  while  the  curse  obtained  through  the  agency 
of  a  priestess  acting  upon  the  name  only  of  the  intended 
victim  presents  a  new  feature.  Animal  gods  and  animal 
offerings  to  gods  mark  clear  and  well-recognised  features 
of  primitive  ritual,  and  the  efficacy  of  the  name  as  a 
tangible  part  of  the  person  to  whom  it  belongs,  besides 
being  represented  among  general  primitive  ideas,1  is 
specially  connected  with  the  practice  of  working  injury 
upon  an  enemy.  Thus  Ellis  mentions  an  example  among 
the  Tshi-speaking  people  of  Africa  very  nearly  allied  to 
the  Welsh  example.  The  formula  is  to  take  three  short 
sticks,  call  aloud  three  times  the  name  of  the  person  to 
be  killed,  and  while  so  doing  to  bind  the  sticks  together 
and  then  lay  them  upon  the  suhman  or  tutelary  deity.2 

Now  Wales,  as  Professor  Rhys  has  taught  us,  forms 
with  Cornwall  or  West  Wales  the  country  of  the  Bry- 
thonic  Celts,  the  second  of  the  two  bands  of  Aryan  Celts 
who  invaded  and  settled  down  in  Britain.  We  must, 

1  Cf.  Mr.  Clodd's  admirable  summary  of  this  subject  in  Folklore 
Journal,  vii.  135-161. 

-  Ellis,  Tshi-speaking  Peoples,  p.  107. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PRIMITIVE   BELIEF        89 

then,  turn  now  to  examples  of  well  worship  in  West 
Wales.  Pin-wells  and  rag-wells  are  both  represented 
in  Cornwall — as,  for  instance,  at  Pelynt,  St.  Austel, 
and  St.  Roche,  where  pins  are  offered,  and  at  Madron 
Well,  where  both  pins  and  rags  are  offered.1  The  two 
fish  sacred  to  St.  Neot,  and  which  never  decreased  or 
increased  in  size  or  number,  must  be  considered  as  the 
sacred  fish  of  the  well,  parallel  to  the  sacred  animals 
we  have  already  seen  in  Wales;  and  the  idea  of  the 
well  being  under  the  care  of  a  priestess,  which  occurred 
in  Denbighshire,  appears  in  the  case  of  Gulval  Well, 
in  Fosses  Moor.  There  an  old  woman  was  '  a  sort  of 
guardian  to  the  well,'  and  instructed  the  devotees  in 
their  ceremonial  observances.  They  had  to  kneel  down 
and  lean  over  the  well  so  as  to  see  their  faces  in  the 
water,  and  repeat  after  their  instructor  a  rhyming 
incantation,  after  which,  by  the  bubbling  of  the  water 
or  by  its  quiescence,  the  reply  of  the  spirit  of  the  well 
was  interpreted.2  At  Altarrium  Well  there  is  something 
approaching  to  human  sacrifice.  Its  special  function 
was  the  cure  of  madness,  and  the  afflicted  person  stood 
with  his  back  to  the  pool,  and  from  thence,  by  a  sudden 
blow  in  the  breast,  was  tumbled  headlong  into  the 
water,  where  a  strong  fellow  took  him  and  tossed  him 
up  and  down.3  At  Chapel  Uny  rickety  children  are 
dipped  three  times  in  the  well  against  the  sun,  and 

1  Antiq.  xxi.   27,  28,  30;    Hunt,    Popvlar  Romances,  p.    295; 
Folklore  Journal,  ii.  349. 

2  Hunt,  op.  cit.  p.  291.  3  Ilrid.  p.  296. 


90  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

dragged  three  times  round  the  well  in  the  same  direc- 
tion.1 

As  a  rough  summary  of  the  Welsh  evidence  it  may 
be  stated  that  well  worship  in  the  district  occupied  by 
the  later  of  the  two  Celtic  invaders  of  Britain  is  far 
ruder  and  more  primitive  than  in  the  district  occupied 
by  the   Teutonic  invaders   of  Britain.     Either,  then, 
modern  culture  has  acted  more  powerfully  upon  Teu- 
tonic England  than  upon  Wales,  routing  up  the  pagan 
rites  that  existed  there  ;  or  else  Teutonic  culture  itself 
acted  against  the  cult  of  well  worship,  and  so  helped 
to  whittle  it  down  to  its  present  insignificance.     With 
regard  to  the   first  alternative,  there  are  few  scholars 
acquainted   with    the    long    catalogue    of    significant 
survivals  of  Teutonic  heathendom  in  Europe  who  would 
be  prepared  to  assert  that  the  Teutons,  as  a  branch  of 
the  Aryan  race,  have  been  more  susceptible  to  civilisa- 
tion than  the  Celts.     On  the  second  alternative  it  may 
be  remarked  that  so  far  as  Teutonic  culture  may  be 
considered  as  Aryan  it  would  be  in  all  essential  matters 
shared  by  the  Celts,  and  that  hence  we  should  expect 
Celtic  culture  to  have  acted  against  well  worship.     But 
if  it  be  remembered  that  the  Celts  were  displaced  from 
south-eastern  Britain  by  the  Teutons  and  driven  into 
the   western   lands   of  Wales  and  south-west  Britain 
amongst  the  otherwise  untouched  aborigines,  the  sugges- 
tion is  at  once  supplied  that  the  Brythonic  Celts  were 
absorbing  in  their  last  home  some  of  the  local  worships 
1  Hunt,  Povulwr  Romances,  p.  300. 


THE  LOCALISATION  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF        91 

of  the  conquered  aborigines.  In  South  Wales  the 
physical  characteristics  of  this  non- Aryan  race  survive,1 
and  why  not,  therefore,  the  remnants  of  their  beliefs, 
especially  those  attached  to  definite  local  objects  ?  It 
does  not  seem  possible  at  this  stage  to  do  more  than 
state  the  hypothesis  which  the  evidence  thus  suggests, 
and  it  remains  for  us  to  examine  well  worship  in  the 
districts  occupied  by  the  first  Aryan  invaders,  named 
Goidelic  Celts  by  Professor  Rhys,  and  containing  in 
their  language  proofs  of  their  ancient  incoming  into 
a  land  of  non-Aryans.  These  districts  are  situated 
in  Scotland  and  Ireland. 

In  Ireland  well  worship  is  nearly  universal,  and  the 
offering  of  pieces  of  rag  is  the  invariable  accompaniment. 
Among  examples  of  rag-wells,  which  show  the  common 
basis  which  the  cult  has  in  all  parts  of  the  British  Isles,  js» 
may  be  mentioned  Ardclinis,  county  Antrim ;  Errigall- 
Keroge,  county  Tyrone  ;  Dungiven  ;  St  Bartholomew's 
Well  at  Pilltown,  county  Waterford ;  and  St.  Brigid's 
Well  at  Cliffony,  county  Sligo.2  At  Rathlogan,  in 
Kilkenny,  we  meet  with  the  cure  of  sore  eyes  already 
noted  in  Britain,  and  examples  of  this  are  said  to  be  else- 
where frequently  met  with.3 

The  locality  of  the  Irish  wells  forms  a  very  inter- 
esting aspect  of  their  history.  '  Along  the  old  ways 
and  not  unfrequently  hidden  in  the  fields  we  discover 

1  Beddoe,  Races  of  Britain,  p.  26. 

2  Mason,  Stat.  Ace.  of  Ireland,  i.  328  ;  iii.  27,  161  ;  Proc.  Roy. 
Hist,  and  Arch.  Soc.  of  Ireland,  4th  Ser.,  v.  370,  382. 

3  Proc.  Roy.  Hist,  and  Arch,  Assoc.  of  Ireland,  4th  Ser.,  ii.  280. 


92  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

interesting  localities,  with  traces  of  ancient  boundaries 
and  primitive  -plantations,  their  verdant  swards  and 
leafy  sweetness  at  once  indicating  their  venerable  old 
age  ;  and  where  the  progress  of  modern  reclamation  has 
not  obliterated  the  landmarks  of  previous  generations 
the  peculiar  configuration  of  those  places  at  once  points 
them  out  as  the  scenes  of  former  life  and  importance, 
often  retaining  in  the  midst  of  rural  silence  the  name  of 
the  "  street,"  the  "  green,"  the  "  common,"  the  "  cross," 
or  some  other  title  of  equal  significance.  Here  we 
usually  find  an  insignificant  enclosure  yet  revered  as 
holy  ground,  here  on  the  appointed  day  the  patron  was 
held,  .  .  .  here,  too,  we  find  a  holy  well  retaining  the 
name  of  the  ancient  patron  saint  of  the  locality.'  l  I 
quote  this  passage  because  it  proclaims  the  archaic 
conditions  surrounding  the  worship  of  wells — conditions 
which  must  be  appreciated  and  understood  if  we  are  to 
read  aright  the  ethnological  evidence  to  be  derived  from 
this  section  of  our  subject. 

The  cult  is  so  general  in  Ireland  that  it  has  not 
received  the  attention  of  Irish  antiquaries  as  it  deserves. 
The  presence  of  animals  or  fish  as  guardians  or  tutelary 
deities  of  the  wells  is  a  marked  feature.  The  fount  of 
Tober  Kieran,  near  Kells,  county  Meath,  rises  in  a 
diminutive  rough-sided  basin  of  limestone  of  natural 
formation,  and  evidently  untouched  by  a  tool.  In  the 
water  are  a  brace  of  miraculous  trout  '  which,  according 
to  tradition,  have  occupied  their  narrow  prison  from  time 

1  Proc.  Poy.  Hist,  and  Arcli.  Asuoc.  of  Ireland,  4th  Ser.,  ii.  2fif>. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PEIMITIVE   BELIEF         93 

immemorial.  They  are  said  never  in  the  memory  of  man 
to  have  altered  in  size,  and  it  is  said  of  them  that  their 
appearance  is  ever  the  same.'  Within  about  a  mile  of 
Cong,  county  Galway,  is  a  deep  depression  in  the  lime- 
stone called  '  Pigeon  Hole  '  and  the  sacred  rivulet  run- 
ning at  the  base  of  the  chasm  '  is  believed  to  contain  a 
pair  of  enchanted  trout,' one  of  which  is  said  to  have 
been  captured  some  time  ago  by  a  trooper  and  cooked, 
but  upon  the  approach  of  cold  steel  '  the  creature  at 
once  changed  into  a  beautiful  young  woman  '  and  was 
returned  to  the  stream.  The  well  at  Tullaghan,  county 
Sligo,  is  known  both  in  history  and  tradition.  It  is 
described  as  one  of  the  wonders  of  Ireland  by  Nennius, 
Giraldus  Cambrensis,  and  OTlaherty,  and  it  is  the  sub- 
ject of  a  curious  legend  in  the  book  of  '  Dinnsenchas ; ' 
and  a  brace  of  miraculous  trout,  not  always  visible  to 
ordinary  eyes,  are  said  to  have  inhabited  this  pool.  At 
Bally morereigh,  in  Dingle,  county  Kerry,  is  a  sacred 
well  called  Tober  Monachan,  where  a  salmon  and  eel 
appear  to  devotees  who  are  to  be  favoured  by  the 
guardian  spirits  of  this  well.1 

Thus  far  the  ceremonies  of  well  worship  in  Ireland 
present  practically  the  same  features,  though  in  a  far 
more  intensified  form,  as  those  in  Wales.  The  proces- 
sions round  the  well  sunwise  are  an  important  and 
nearly  universal  part  of  the  ceremony  which  the  Irish 
evidence  introduces  into  the  subject,  and  the  apparently 

1  Proc.  Roy.  Hist.  ai\d  Arch.  Soc.  of  Ireland,  4th  Ser.,  v.  366,  367, 
370 ;  vii.  656. 


94  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 

unimportant  detail  occurring  in  a  Shropshire  example 
noted  above,  of  pouring  water  over  a  particular  stone, 
receives  significant  light  from  the  examples  in  Ireland. 
Thus  at  Dungiven,  after  hanging  their  offerings  of  rags 
on  the  bush  adjoining  the  well,  the  devotees  proceed  to 
a  large  stone  in  the  river  Roe  immediately  below  the 
old  church,  and,  having  performed  an  ablution,  they 
walk  round  the  stone,  bowing  to  it  and  repeating 
prayers,  and  then,  after  performing  a  similar  ceremony 
in  the  church,  they  finish  the  rite  by  a  procession  and 
prayer  round  the  upright  stone.1  But  besides  re- 
storing the  unimportant  details  of  Welsh  ritual  to  an 
important  place  in  well  worship,  Irish  evidence  intro- 
duces a  wholly  new  feature.  Thus  at  Tobernacoragh,  a 
sacred  well  on  the  island  of  Innismurray,  off  the  coast 
of  Sligo,  during  tempestuous  weather  '  it  was  the  custom 
for  the  natives  to  drain  the  waters  of  this  well  into  the 
ocean,  as  they  believed  by  so  doing,  and  by  the  offering 
up  of  certain  prayers,  the  elemental  war  might  cease 
and  a  holy  calm  follow.' 2  In  this  case  the  connection 
between  well  worship  and  the  worship  of  a  rain-god  is 
certain,  for  it  may  be  surmised  that  if  the  emptying  of 
the  well  allayed  a  storm  some  complementary  action 
was  practised  at  one  time  or  other  in  order  to  produce 
rain,  and  in  districts  more  subject  to  a  want  of  rain 
than  this  Atlantic  island  that  ceremony  would  be  accen- 

1  Mason,  Stat.  Ace.  of  Ireland,  i.  328. 

2  Proc.  Roy.  Hist,  and   Arch.  Soc.  of  Ireland,   4th  Sen,  vii. 
300. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PRIMITIVE   BELIEF         95 

tnated  at  the  expense  of  the  storm-allaying  ceremony 
at  Innismurray. 

Finally  we  pass  into  Scotland,  where  also  the  Goidelic 
Celts  settled.  I  will  first  briefly  enumerate  some  in- 
stances to  show  the  identity  of  customs  connected  with 
well  worship  in  Scotland  with  those  in  the  districts  we 
have  already  examined.  This  will  confirm  the  evidence, 
which  seems  to  be  pretty  well  established,  that  the 
foundation  of  well  worship  in  all  parts  of  the  British 
Isles  is  the  same — the  rites  and  ceremonies  are  sub- 
stantially part  and  parcel  of  a  common  cult ;  they 
differ  in  the  degree  in  which  they  have  survived  in 
various  places,  but  the  forms  of  the  survival  do  not 
differ  in  kind  because  they  are  derived  from  a  common 
origin. 

About  fifty  years  after  the  Reformation  it  was  noted 
that  the  wells  of  Scotland  c  were  all  tapestried  about 
with  old  rags.' l  The  best  examples  lasting  to  within 
modern  times  are  to  be  found  in  the  islands  round  the 
coast  and  in  the  northern  shires,  particularly  in  Banff, 
Aberdeen,  Perth,  Ross,  and  Caithness.  At  Kilmuir,  in 
the  Isle  of  Skye,  at  Loch  Shiant,  or  Siant,  there  was  '  a 
shelf  made  in  the  wall  of  a  contiguous  enclosure  '  for 
placing  thereon  '  the  offerings  of  small  rags,  pins,  and 
coloured  threads  to  the  divinity  of  the  place.' 2  At  St. 
Mourie's  Well,  on  Malruba  Isle,  a  rag  was  left  on  the 


1  The  Book  of  Bon  Accord,  p.  268. 

2  Sinclair's  Stat.  Ace.  of  Scotland,  ii.  557 ;   New  Stat.  Ace.  xiv. 
245  ;  Martin,  Western  Isles,  p.  140. 


96  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

bushes,  nails  stuck  into  an  oak  tree,  or  sometimes  a 
copper  coin  driven  in.1  At  Toubirmore  Well,  in  Gigha 
Isle,  devotees  were  accustomed  to  leave  '  a  piece  of 
money,  a  needle,  pin,  or  one  of  the  prettiest  variegated 
stones  they  could  find,'  and  at  Tonbir  Well,  in  Jura, 
they  left  '  an  offering  of  some  small  token,  such  as 
a  pin,  needle,  farthing,  or  the  like.' 2  In  Banffshire, 
at  Montblairie,  '  many  still  alive  remember  to  have 
seen  the  impending  boughs  adorned  with  rags  of  linen 
and  woollen  garments,  and  the  well  enriched  with 
farthings  and  bodies,  the  offerings  of  those  who  came 
from  afar  to  the  fountain.' 3  At  Keith  the  well  is  near 
a  stone  circle,  and  some  offering  was  always  left  by  the 
devotees.4  In  Aberdeenshire,  at  Frazerburgh,  'the 
superstitious  practice  of  leaving  some  small  trifle'  ex- 
isted.5 In  Perthshire,  at  St.  Fillan's  Well,  Comrie,  the 
patients  leave  behind  c  some  rags  of  linen  or  woollen 
cloth.' 6  In  Caithness,  at  Dunnat,  they  throw  a  piece 
of  money  in  the  water,  and  at  Wick  they  leave  a  piece 
of  bread  and  cheese  and  a  silver  coin,  which  they 
alleged  disappeared  in  some  mysterious  way.7  In  Ross 
and  Cromarty,  at  Alness,  '  pieces  of  coloured  cloth  were 
left  as  offerings ' ;  at  Cragnick  an  offering  of  a  rag  was 
suspended  from  a  bramble  bush  overhanging  the  well ; 
at  Fodderty  the  devotees  '  always  left  on  a  neighbouring 

1  Gordon  Gumming,  In  tJie  Hebrides,  pp.  190, 191. 

3  Martin's  Tour,  pp.  230,  242. 

*  Robertson,  Antiquities  of  Aberdeen  and  Banff,  ii.  310. 

4  Sinclair's  Stat.  Ace.  of  Scot.  v.  430.   s  Ibid.  vi.  9.  *  Ibid.  xi.  181- 
T  Nere  Stat.  Ace.,  xv.  38,  161. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PKIMITTVE   BELIEF         97 

bush  or  tree  a  bit  of  coloured  cloth  or  thread  as  a  relic ; 
and  at  Kiltearn  shreds  of  clothing  were  hung  on  the 
surrounding  trees.1  In  Sutherlandshire,  at  Farr  and 
at  Loth,  a  coin  was  thrown  into  the  well.2  In  Dum- 
friesshire, at  Penpont,  a  part  of  the  dress  was  left  as 
an  offering,  and  many  pieces  have  been  seen  '  floating 
on  the  lake  or  scattered  round  the  banks.' 3  In  Kirk- 
cudbrightshire, at  Buittle, '  either  money  or  clothes '  was 
left,4  and  in  Eenfrewshire,  at  Houston,  '  pieces  of  cloth 
were  left  as  a  present  or  offering  to  the  saint  on  the 
bushes.' 5 

These  examples  give  a  fair  idea  of  what  may  be 
found  on  this  subject  by  searching  among  the  older  topo- 
graphical accounts.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  pursue 
these  details  with  greater  minuteness,  and  it  may  be 
stated  as  a  general  rule  that  '  at  all  these  fountains  the 
invalid  used  the  same  ceremonies,  approaching  them 
sunwise,' 6  or  '  deisil,'  as  it  was  called.  Nowhere  is  this 
particular  so  prominent  as  in  Scotland,  and  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind  in  connection  with  the  other  ceremonies 
performed  at  the  wells. 

There  are  now  some  more  special  details  to  note. 
The  cure  of  madness  by  severe  physical  measures  such 
as  we  have  noted  in  Ireland,  is  represented  in  Scotland 
in  Loch  Maree  Island,  where,  after  drinking  from  the 

1  New  Stat.  Ace.  xiv.  246,  344,  382  ;  Sinclair,  i.  284. 

2  New  Stat.  Ace.  xv.  72,  191.  3  Ibid.  iv.  506. 
4  Ibid.  iv.  203.                5  Sinclair's  Stat.  Ace.  i.  316. 
6  Forbes  Leslie,  Early  Races  of  Scotland,  i.  p.  156. 

H 


98  ETHNOLOGY   IN   FOLKLORE 

well,  the  patients  were  towed  round  the  island  ; '  at 
Strathfillan,  near  Logierait,  where  the  patient  bathed 
after  sunset  and  before  sunrise  the  next  morning,  and 
was  then  laid  on  his  back  bound  to  a  stone  in  the  ruined 
chapel  of  St.  Fillan,  and  if  next  morning  he  was  found 
loose  the  cure  was  deemed  perfect.2  An  important  fea- 
ture of  this  ceremony  is  the  time — during  the  absence 
of  the  sun.  At  Farr,  in  Sutherlandshire,  the  patient, 
after  undergoing  his  plunge,  drinking  of  the  water, 
and  making  his  offering, '  must  be  away  from  the  banks 
so  as  to  be  fairly  out  of  sight  of  the  water  before  the  sun 
rises,  else  no  cure  is  effected.'  3  On  the  other  hand,  to 
bathe  in  the  well  of  St.  Medan,  at  Kirkmaiden  in  Wigton- 
shire,  as  the  sun  rose  on  the  first  Sunday  in  May  was 
considered  an  infallible  cure  for  almost  any  disease.4 
At  Cragnick  Well,  at  Avoch  in  Ross,  bathing  took  place 
under  the  same  conditions  as  to  time  and  date,  but  it 
was  also  necessary  to  spill  a  portion  of  the  water  upon 
the  ground  three  times.5  At  Muthill,  in  Perthshire, 
the  time  for  drinking  the  waters  was  before  the  sun 
rises  or  immediately  after  it  sets,  coupled  with  the  con- 
dition that  it  was  to  be  drunk  out  of  a  '  quick  cow's 
horn '  (a  horn  taken  from  a  live  cow) ;  '  which  indis- 
pensable horn  was  in  the  keeping  of  an  old  woman  who 
lived  near  the  well.'  6 

This  latter  custom  reintroduces  the  idea  of  a  priestess 
of  the  well,  which  we  have  seen  first  appears  in  Wales. 

1  New  Stat.  Ace.  of  Scot.  xiv.  92.        *  Nem  Stat.  Ace.  x.  1088. 
1  Ibid.  xv.  72.    4  Ibid,  iv.  208.    s  Ibid.  xiv.  382.     •  Ibid.  x.  313. 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF   PRIMITIVE    BELIEF        99 

Perhaps  the  leaving  of  a  piece  of  silver  or  gold  in  the 
water  '  for  the  officiating  priest '  at  Loth,  in  Sutherland- 
shire,1  may  be  a  survival  of  the  same  idea,  but  I  think 
the  survival  is  undoubted  in  those  cases  where  the 
patient  does  not  attend  at  the  well  himself,  but  employs 
a  substitute.  It  is  noticeable  that  this  substitute  has 
to  go  through  a  most  careful  ceremonial.  Thus  at 
Penpont,  in  Dumfriesshire,  the  emissary  of  the  patient, 
when  he  reached  the  well,  '  had  to  draw  water  in  a  vessel 
which  was  on  no  account  to  touch  the  ground,  to  turn 
himself  round  with  the  sun,  to  throw  his  offering  to  the 
spirit  over  his  left  shoulder,  and  to  carry  the  water 
without  ever  looking  back  to  the  sick  person.  All  this 
was  to  be  done  in  absolute  silence,  and  he  was  to  salute 
no  one  by  the  way.'2  The  elements  of  magic  ritual 
preserved  here  are  very  obvious,  and  it  is  to  be  remarked 
that  silence  is  a  condition  imposed  upon  the  devotees  at 
many  wells  in  Ireland  and  also  in  England. 

In  the  Isle  of  Lewis  occurs  a  remarkable  variant. 
'  St.  Andrew's  Well,  in  the  village  Shadar,'  says  Martin, 
'  is  by  the  vulgar  natives  made  a  test  to  know  if  a 
sick  person  will  die  of  the  distemper  he  labours  under. 
They  send  one  with  a  wooden  dish  to  bring  some  of  the 
water  to  the  patient,  and  if  the  dish,  which  is  then 
laid  softly  upon  the  surface  of  the  water,  turn  round 
sunways  they  conclude  that  the  patient  will  recover  of 
that  distemper,  but  if  otherwise,  that  he  will  die.'  3  I 

1  New  Stat.  Ace.  xv.  191.  2  Stat.  Ace.  of  Scot.  iv.  506. 

*  Martin,  Western  Islands,  p.  7 

H  2 


100         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

am  inclined  to  connect  this  with  the  vessel  or  cauldron 
so  frequently  occurring  in  Celtic  tradition,  and  which 
Mr.  Nutt  has  marked  as  '  a  part  of  the  gear  of  the  oldest 
Celtic  divinities,' 1  perhaps  of  divinities  older  than  the 
Celts. 

The  connection  between  well  worship  and  the  cult 
of  the  rain-god  appeared  in  the  example  at  Innismurray 
Island,  off  the  coast  of  Sligo.  It  also  is  a  feature  of  the 
Scottish  evidence.  The  well  of  Tarbat,  in  the  island  of 
Gigha, '  is  famous  for  having  the  command  of  the  wind. 
Six  feet  above  where  the  water  gushes  out  there  is  a 
heap  of  stones,  which  forms  a  cover  to  the  sacred  fount. 
When  a  person  wished  for  a  fair  wind  this  part  was 
opened  with  great  solemnity,  the  stones  carefully  re- 
moved, and  the  well  cleaned  with  a  wooden  dish  or 
clam-shell.  This  being  done,  the  water  was  several 
times  thrown  in  the  direction  from  which  the  wished-for 
wind  was  to  blow,  and  this  action  was  accompanied  by 
a  certain  form  of  words  which  the  person  repeated 
every  time  he  threw  the  water.  When  the  ceremony 
was  over  the  well  was  again  carefully  shut  up  to  pre- 
vent fatal  consequences,  it  being  firmly  believed  that 
were  the  place  left  open  it  would  occasion  a  storm  which 
would  overwhelm  the  whole  island.' 2  When  to  these 
striking  details  of  magical  ritual  is  added  the  fact 
that  there  were  two  old  women  '  who  are  said  to  have 

1  Studies  in  the  Legend  of  the  Holy  Oh-ail,  p.  185,  and  compare 
the  magic  cup  in  the  Karen  River  legend. — Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bcnyul, 
xxxiv.  (2)  219. 

2  Sinclair's  Stat.  Ace.  viii  52;  Martin,  Western  Islands,  p.  230. 


THE  LOCALISATION  OF  PEIMITIVE   BELIEF      101 

the  secret,'  and  through  whom  the  ceremonial  is  to  be 
-  accomplished,  one  cannot  but  recognise  the  parallel  to 
those  priestesses  of  Sena  and  their  rites  with  which 
classical  authorities  have  acquainted  us.  One  little 
detail  is  recorded  by  Martin  which  is  not  given  in  the 
otherwise  fuller  account  just  quoted — namely,  that  the 
well  must  always  be  '  opened  by  a  Diroch,  i.e.  an  inmate, 
else  they  think  it  would  not  exert  its  virtues,'  and  this 
emphasis  on  the  necessity  of  action  being  taken  by  a 
native  as  opposed  to  a  foreigner  or  stranger  is  again  re- 
corded of  a  well  rite  in  the  island  of  Egg,  where,  '  if  a 
stranger  lie  at  this  well  in  the  night-time  it  will  procure 
a  deformity  in  some  part  of  his  body,  but  has  no  such 
effect  on  a  native.' l 

Finally,  as  to  the  guardian  spirit  of  the  Scottish 
wells.  At  Kilbride,  in  Skye,  was  a  well  with  '  one  trout 
only  in  it ;  the  natives  are  very  tender  of  it,  and  though 
they  often  chance  to  catch  it  in  their  wooden  pails,  they 
are  very  careful  to  preserve  it  from  being  destroyed.' 2 
In  the  well  at  Kilmore,  in  Lorn,  were  two  fish,  black  in 
colour,  never  augmenting  in  size  or  number  nor  ex- 
hibiting any  alteration  of  colour,  and  the  inhabitants  of 
the  place  '  doe  call  the  saide  fishes  Easg  Siant,  that  is 
to  say,  holie  fishes.' 3  This  supplies  an  exact  counter- 
part of  the  Irish  beliefs.  Other  examples  of  a  still 
more  interesting  nature  occur  in  Scotland,  however.  If, 
says  Dalyell,  a  certain  worm  in  a  medicinal  spring  on 

1  Martin,  op.  cit.  p.  277.  2  Ibid.  p.  141. 

3  Dalyell,  Darker  Sitperstitinnx,  p.  412. 


102         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

the  top  of  the  hill  in  the  parish  of  Strathdon  were  found 
alive  it  augured  the  recovery  of  a  patient,  and  in  a 
well  of  Ardnacloich,  in  Appin,  the  patient  '  if  he  bee  to 
dye  shall  find  a  dead  worme  therein,  or  a  quick  one,  if 
health  bee  to  follow.' !  These,  there  can  be  little  doubt, 
are  the  former  deities  of  the  spring  thus  reduced  in 
status.  But  the  most  remarkable  example  occurs  at  a 
well  near  the  church  of  Kirkmichael,  in  Banffshire. 
The  guardian  of  the  well  assumed  the  semblance  of  a 
fly,  who  was  always  present,  and  whose  every  movement 
was  regarded  by  the  votaries  at  the  shrine  with  silent 
awe,  and  as  he  appeared  cheerful  or  dejected  the 
anxious  votaries  drew  their  presages.  This  guardian 
fly  of  the  well  of  St.  Michael  was  believed  to  be  exempt 
from  the  laws  of  mortality.  '  To  the  eye  of  ignorance  ' 
says  the  local  account, '  he  might  sometimes  appear  dead, 
but  it  was  only  a  transmigration  into  a  similar  form, 
which  made  little  alteration  to  the  real  identity.' 2  It 
seems  impossible  to  mistake  this  as  an  almost  perfect 
example  where  the  guardian  deity  of  the  sacred  spring 
is  represented  in  animal  form.  More  perfect  than  any 
other  example  to  be  met  with  in  Britain  and  its  isles 
is  this  singular  description  of  the  traditional  peasant 
belief;  it  lifts  the  whole  evidence  as  to  the  identification 
of  wells  in  Britain  as  the  shrine  of  ancient  local  deities 
into  close  parallel  with  savage  ideas  and  thought.  The 
divine  life  of  the  waters,  as  Professor  Robertson  Smith 

1  Dalyell,  op.  cit.  506,  507. 

2  Sinclair's  Stat.  Ace.  of  Scot.  xii.  465 


THE   LOCALISATION   OF  PKIMITIVE   BELIEF      103 

says,  resides  in  the  sacred  fish  that  inhabits  them, 
and  he  gives  numerous  examples  analogous  to  the 
Scottish  and  Irish.  But  whether  represented  by  fish, 
or  frog,  or  worm,  or  fly,  '  in  all  their  various  forms, 
the  point  of  the  legends  is  that  the  sacred  source  is 
either  inhabited  by  a  demoniac  being  or  imbued  with 
demoniac  life.' l 

This  is  the  highest  point  to  be  reached  in  the  survey 
of  well  worship  in  Britain.  The  animal  god  is  clearly 
an  element  of  the  primitive  life  of  the  worshippers  at 
these  wells,  and  it  is  here  that  research  into  origins 
must  commence.  From  the  small  beginnings  where 
the  survival  of  some  ancient  cult  is  represented  by  the 
simple  idea  of  reverence  for  certain  wells  mostly  dedi- 
cated to  a  Christian  saint,  through  stages  where  a  cere- 
monial is  faintly  traced  in  the  well-dressing  with  garlands 
decked  with  flowers  and  ribbons ;  where  shrubs  and 
trees  growing  near  the  well  are  the  recipients  of  offer- 
ings by  devotees  to  the  spirit  of  the  well ;  where  disease 
and  sickness  of  all  kinds  are  ministered  to  ;  where  aid 
is  sought  against  enemies  ;  where  the  gift  of  rain  is 
obtained  ;  where  the  spirit  appears  in  general  forms  as 
fairies  and  in  specific  form  as  animal  or  fish,  and  finally, 
it  may  be,  in  anthropomorphic  form  as  Christian  saint ; 
where  priestesses  attend  the  well  to  preside  over  the 
ceremonies ;  with  the  several  variants  overlapping  at 
every  stage  and  thus  keeping  the  whole  group  of  super- 
stition and  custom  in  touch  one  section  with  another ; 
1  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  161. 


104         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

with  the  curious  local  details  cropping  up  to  illumine 
the  atmosphere  of  pagan  worship  which  is  so  evidently 
the  basis  of  reverence  for  wells — there  is  every  reason 
to  identify  this  cult  as  the  most  widespread  and  the 
most  lasting  in  connection  with  local  natural  objects. 
The  deification  of  rivers,  of  mountain  tops,  of  crags  and 
weird  places  obtains  here  and  there  only  ;  the  deification 
of  the  waters  of  the  well  occurs  all  over  the  land.  And 
we  are  met  with  a  very  important  fact  of  classification — 
that  it  is  in  the  Celtic-speaking  districts  of  our  land 
where  the  rudest  and  most  uncivilised  ceremonial  is 
extant,  and,  further,  that  it  is  in  the  country  of  the 
Goidelic,  or  earliest  branch  of  the  Celts,  where  this  finds 
its  most  pronounced  types. 

To  show  how  this  may  be  translated  into  terms  of 
ethnology  it  will  be  best  to  reduce  it  into  something 
like  a  formula.  It  must  be  remembered  that  we  are 
dealing  with  survivals  of  an  ancient  cult,  and  the  point 
is  to  ascertain  where  the  survivals  are  the  most  perfect — 
less  touched,  that  is,  by  the  incoming  civilisations  which 
have  swept  over  them.  This  formula  might  perhaps  be 
arranged  as  shown  by  the  table  on  the  next  page. 

From  this  it  is  clear  that  we  may  take  the  acts  of 
simple  reverence,  garland-dressing,  and  dedication  to  a 
Christian  saint  as  the  late  expression  in  popular  tradi- 
tion of  the  earlier  and  more  primitive  acts  tabulated 
above.  Taking  the  more  primitive  elements  as  our 
basis  the  lowest  point  is  obtained  from  English  ground, 
which  only  rises  into  the  primitive  stage  in  the  northern 


THE  LOCALISATION  OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF       105 


Form  of  worship 

OfEerings 

Deity  or 
spirit 

fa 

O 

en  M 

-   *'? 

- 

B 

tl 

o  ^ 

"2 

3^3 

,«'tl 

.  tx> 

ja 

"a  -r.    5  '£ 

El  i 

?  f 

=  1 

—    d 
^  — 

|  | 

5.5 

_n 

|| 

*s 

3.3  1  a 

.1-1   ^ 

ft 

03 

II 

>~ 

I 

i  "5 
IB 

|l 

1 

CD 

a  § 

<J  sac 

H 

England 

- 

Eastern     and    South- 

eastern . 

-f 

-{- 

Isle  of  Wight 

+ 

+ 

+ 

Western  (middle) 

+ 

_l- 

4. 

Western 

+ 

4- 

-f- 

+ 

•f 

Northern  :  (a) 

+ 

4- 

+ 

+ 

+ 

(6) 

+ 

4- 

+ 

+ 

+ 

Wales 

+ 

4. 

4- 

+ 

-f 

+ 

Cornwall  . 

+ 

4. 

-)- 

+ 

4. 

Ireland    . 

-)- 

4. 

4. 

-1- 

-)- 

+ 

Scotland  . 

+ 

+ 

+ 

+ 

+ 

+ 

+ 

counties,  where  rag-bushes  are  found.  On  Welsh  ground 
the  highest  point  of  primitive  culture  is  the  tradition  of 
an  animal  guardian  spirit.  On  Irish  ground  the  highest 
point  is  the  identification  of  the  well  deity  with  the 
rain-god,  while  on  Scottish  ground  the  highest  points 
recognisable  elsewhere  are  accentuated  in  degree. 

Now,  I  have  proved  above  that  the  three  forms  in 
which  offerings  to  the  well  deities  are  made  are  but 
variants  of  one  primitive  form — namely,  the  offerings  of 
rags  or  parts  of  clothing  upon  bushes  sacred  to  the 
well.  This  species  of  offering  has  been  investigated 
with  regard  to  its  geographical  distribution  by  Mr.  M. 
J.  Walhouse,  and  it  is  certain  that  it  occupies  a  much 
wider  area  than  that  inhabited  by  Aryan  peoples.1  Thus, 
to  quote  a  summary  given  by  General  Pitt-Rivers, 
'  Burton  says  it  extends  throughout  northern  Africa  from 
1  Journ.  AntJirop.  Inst.  ix.  97-106. 


/->..•. 


106         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

west   to   east ;  Mungo   Park   mentions   it   in   western 
Africa ;  Sir  Samuel  Baker  speaks  of  it  on  the  confines 
of  Abyssinia,  and  says  that  the  people  who  practised  it 
were  unable  to  assign  a  reason  for  doing  so ;  Burton 
also  found  the  same  custom  in  Arabia  during  his  pil- 
grimage to  Mecca ;  in  Persia  Sir  William  Ouseley  saw 
a  tree  close  to  a  large  monolith  covered  with  these  rags, 
and  he  describes  it  as  a  practice  appertaining  to  a  reli- 
gion long   since   proscribed  in   that   country ;  in   the 
Dekkan  and  Ceylon  Colonel  Leslie  says  that  the  trees 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  wells   may  be  seen   covered 
with  similar  scraps  of  cotton ;  Dr.  A.  Campbell  speaks 
of  it  as  being  practised  by  the  Limboos  near  Darjeeling 
in  the  Himalaya,  where  it  is  associated,  as  in  Ireland,  with 
large  heaps  of  stones  ;  and  Hue  in  his  travels  mentions 
it   among   the  Tartars.' l     Here   not   only  do  we   get 
evidence  of  the  cult  in  an  Aryan  country  like  Persia 
being  proscribed,  but,  as  General  Pitt-Rivers  observes, 
'  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  so  singular  a  custom 
as  this,  invariably  associated  with   cairns,  megalithic 
monuments,  holy  wells,  or  some  such  early  Pagan  insti- 
tutions, could  have  arisen  independently   in  all  these 
countries.'     That  the  area  over  which  it  is  found  is  co- 
terminous with  the  area  of  the  megalithic  monuments, 
that  these  monuments  take  us  back  to  pre- Aryan  people 
and  suggest  the  spread  of  this  people  over  the  area 
covered  by  their  remains,  are  arguments  in  favour  of  a 
megalithic  date  for  well  worship  and  rag  offerings. 

1  Journ.  Ethnol.  Soo.,  N.S.,  i.  64. 


THE  LOCALISATION  OF  PEIMITIVE   BELIEF      107 

That  I  am  concerned  only  with  the  element  of  ethno- 
logy in  this  cult  compels  me  to  pass  over  the  very  im- 
portant conclusions  which  an  analysis  of  the  rites  of 
well  worship  suggests  in  connection  with  the  primitive 
agricultural  life  of  the  pre- Aryan  people  of  these  islands, 
and  I  conclude  what  there  is  to  say  about  well  worship 
by  a  reference  to  a  chronological  fact  of  some  interest 
and  importance. 

Its  highest  form  of  rude  savagery  within  the  area 
which  we  have  examined  so  minutely  is  found  in  the    . 
country  of  the  old  Picts  of  Scotland,  who   are  identi-  z 
tied  as  non- Aryans  by  Professor  Ehys.     And  this  was  <* 
the   country   where    St.    Columba    found    a    '  fountain 
famous  among  this  heathen  people  [and]  worshipped  as 
a  god '    and    where  in   its   waters  he  vanquished   and 
confounded  '  the  Druids '  and  '  then  blessed  the  fountain, 
and  from  that  day  the  demons  separated  from  the  water.' l 
In  this  non- Aryan  country,  as  in  ancient  and  perhaps 
pre-Semitic  A  rabia,  '  the  fountain  is  treated  as  a  living 
thing,  those   properties  of  its   waters   which   we  call 
natural  are  regarded  as  manifestations  of  a  divine  life, 
and  the  source  itself  is  honoured  as  a  divine  being,  I 
had  almost  said  a  divine  animal.' 2     This  pregnant  sum- 
mary of  well  worship  in  Arabia  may  without  the  altera- 
tion of  a  single  word  be  adopted  as  the  summary  of 
well  worship  in   Britain  and  its  isles,  and  it  confirms 
the  conclusion  that  it  is  a  non- Aryan  cult  attached  to 

1  Keeve's  edition  of  Adamnan's  Lift;  of  St.  Columba,  lib.  ii.  cap.  xi. 
'-  Robertson  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  168. 


108         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOEE 

the  most  important  of  natural  objects,  which  existed 
before  Celt  or  Teuton  spread  over  the  land,  and  which 
retained,  as  in  Pictland  we  have  definite  evidence,  all 
the  old  faiths,  whatsoever  people  might  come  and  settle 
down  around  them. 

The  power  of  localisation  in  primitive  belief  is  shown 
by  these  examples  to  have  been  a  very  significant  and 
lasting  power.  Research  could  be  extended  into  other 
branches  of  the  subject — to  mountain  worship,  tree 
worship,  rock  worship — but  extension  would  do  no 
more  than  confirm  what  I  hope  is  now  clear — that 
some  of  the  great  objects  of  nature  common  to  all 
localities,  conspicuous  to  all  people  living  in  the  locali- 
ties, generated  certain  beliefs  which  remain  perma- 
nently fixed  upon  the  object,  and  thus  afford  lasting 
evidence  of  the  continuity  of  early  faiths  which  do 
not  cease  when  newer  faiths  come  into  contact  with 
them. 


109 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE 

THE  analogies  which  exist  between  savage  custom  and 
European  folklore  suggested  the  first  stage  of  the  argu- 
ment for  the  existence  of  ethnic  elements  in  folklore. 
What  is  this  folklore,  which  can  be  traced  to  nothing, 
outside  of  folklore,  in  the  habitual  beliefs  and  customs 
of  civilised  countries,  and  which  is  parallel  only  to  the 
habitual  beliefs  and  customs  of  savages  ?  A  key  to  the 
answer  was  supplied  when  it  was  pointed  out  that  there 
is  an  equation  which  consists,  on  the  one  side,  of  Indian 
religious  rites,  in  which  Aryan  and  non- Aryan  races 
take  their  respective  parts,  and,  on  the  other  side,  of 
custom  in  survival  among  European  peasantry.  From 
this  it  was  argued  that  the  appearance  of  the  factor 
of  race  on  one  side  of  the  equation  made  it  neces- 
sary that  it  should  also  be  inserted  on  the  other  side, 
and  it  was  therefore  urged  that  the  items  of  folklore 
thus  ear-marked  should  be  separated  off  into  groups 
of  non- Aryan  and  Aryan  origins. 

It  follows  from  this,  then,  that  relics  of  different  races 
are  to  be  found  in  the  folklore  of  countries  whose  chief 


110         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

characteristics  have  up  to  the  present  been  identified 
by  scholars  as  belonging  to  one  race.  So  important  a 
conclusion  necessitates  some  further  inquiry  into  those 
items  of  folklore  on  the  European  side  of  the  equation 
which  are  thus  allocated  to  different  race  origins,  and  it 
may  be  urged  that  they  should  contain  some  quality 
which  of  itself,  now  that  we  have  the  key,  will  help  to 
identify  them  as  of  non-Aryan  or  Aryan  origin.  We 
must  not,  in  short,  rely  upon  the  comparative  method 
for  everything.  Aryan  belief  and  custom,  though  doubt- 
less not  easily  distinguishable  in  some  cases  from  non- 
Aryan  belief  and  custom,  is  in  other  cases  definitely 
and  distinctly  marked  off  from  it  both  in  theory  and 
practice.  In  folklore,  therefore,  this  difference  would 
also  appear  if  the  hypothesis  as  to  origin  is  true. 
There  must  at  least  exist  some  beliefs  and  some  usages 
which  are  inconsistent  with  the  corresponding  Aryan 
beliefs  and  usages — an  inconsistency  which  in  the  last  ^ 
stages  of  survival  does  not  perhaps  present  a  very  im- 
portant consideration  to  the  peasantry  among  whom  the 
folklore  obtains,  but  which,  if  traced  back  to  the  origi- 
nals, may  be  shown  to  have  been  an  important  factor 
in  the  development  of  primitive  Aryan  thought  and 
custom. 

Hence,  in  attempting  to  trace  out  the  originals  of 
modern  folklore,  it  is  clear  that  its  inconsistencies  must 
be  carefully  observed.  For  the  purpose  of  the  problem 
now  under  discussion  we  must  note  these  inconsisten- 
cies, in  order  to  see  if  they  may  be  identified  with  two 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLORE        111 

distinct  lines  of  primitive  custom  and  belief.  On 
the  one  hand  there  would  be  the  line  of  parallel  to 
modern  savagery,  where  the  folklore,  that  is,  is  at  the 
same  level  of  development  in  human  culture  as  the  savage 
custom  or  belief ;  on  the  other  hand,  there  would  be  the 
line  of  parallel  to  a  much  higher  culture  than  savagery. 
If  these  two  inconsistent  lines  of  development  are  both 
represented  in  folklore,  though  in  spirit  antagonistic  to 
each  other,  the  point  is  gained  that  in  folklore  is  discover- 
able at  least  two  separate  lines  of  descent.  They  must 
have  been  produced  by  the  presence  within  the  country 
where  they  now  survive  of  different  races  living  together 
in  the  relationship  of  conquered  and  conquerors ;  they 
must  have  been  subsequently  handed  on  by  generation 
after  generation  of  the  same  races ;  they  must  finally  have 
been  preserved  by  the  peasantry,  long  after  distinction  of 
race  in  Europe  had  ceased  to  exist,  as  mere  observance  of 
custom,  because,  as  such,  they  were  part  and  parcel  of 
their  stock  of  life-action,  not  pushed  out  of  existence  by 
anything  higher  in  religion  or  culture,  but  retaining 
their  old  place  year  after  year,  decade  after  decade, 
simply  because  their  dislodgment,  without  adequate 
replacement  from  other  sources,  would  have  created  a 
vacuum  as  foreign  to  nature  in  man  as  to  nature  in  the 
world  surrounding  man. 

We  have  thus  two  distinct  lines  of  parallel  to  trace 
out — a  parallel  with  savagery  and  a  parallel  with  a 
higher  culture.  The  work  before  us  is  not  one  that  can 
be  accomplished  off-hand.  Folklore  has  a  genealogy,  so 


112  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

to  speak,  where  the  links  are  represented  by  the  various 
changes  which  the  condition  of  survival  inevitably  brings 
about.  I  have  said  that  there  is  no  development  in 
folklore.  All  chances  of  development  had  been  crushed 
out  when  the  original  elements  of  what  is  now  classed  as 
folklore  were  pushed  back  from  the  condition  of  tribal 
or  national  custom  and  belief  to  that  of  tolerated  peasant 
superstition.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  no  change 
of  any  sort  has  taken  place.  The  changes  of  decay, 
degradation,  and  misapplication  have  taken  the  place 
of  change  by  development. 

The  marked  features  of  these  changes  are  capable  of 
some  classification,  and  I  shall  term  them  symbolism, 
substitution,  and  amalgamation.  A  practice  originally 
in  one  particular  form  assumes  another  form,  but  still 
symbolical  of  the  original ;  or  it  is  transferred  to  another 
object  or  set  of  objects ;  or  it  becomes  joined  on  to  other 
practices  and  beliefs,  and  produces  in  this  way  a  new 
amalgamation.  All  these  processes  indicate  the  change 
of  decay  incidental  to  survivals,  not  the  change  of 
development,  and  in  tracing  out  the  genealogy  of  folk- 
lore it  is  the  changes  of  decay  which  mark  the  steps  of 
the  descent.  When  children  are  made  to  jump  through 
the  midsummer  fires  for  luck,  human  sacrifice  has  in 
folklore  become  symbolised ;  when  the  blood  of  the  cock 
is  sprinkled,  as  in  France,  over  the  stones  of  a  new  build- 
ing the  animal  object  of  the  sacrifice  has  been  sub- 
stituted for  the  human  object;  when  the  wise  man  of 
the  Yorkshire  villages  has  assumed  the  character  of 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   113 

part  wizard  or  witch,  part  sorcerer,  magician,  or 
enchanter,  and  part  conjurer,  there  has  been  an 
amalgamation  of  the  characters  and  credentials  of  three 
or  four  entities  in  pagan  priesthood.  And  so  through 
all  these  changes  we  must  endeavour  to  carefully  work 
back  step  by  step  to  the  original  form.  That  form  as 
restored  will  represent  the  true  survival  enshrined  in 
folklore,  and  according  to  its  equation  with  savage,  or 
with  an  ascertained  development  from  savage  originals, 
will  it  be  possible  to  decide  to  what  early  race  it  is  to  be 
attributed — the  highly  organised  Aryan,  capable  of  a 
culture  equal  to  his  language,  or  the  ruder  and  more 
savage  predecessors  of  the  Aryan  people. 

I  will  now  give  some  examples  of  the  ethnic  genea- 
logy of  folklore  on  the  lines  just  traced  out.  They  are 
examples  chosen  not  for  the  special  object  of  endeavour- 
ing to  prove  a  point,  but  as  evidence  of  what  a  careful 
examination  of  folklore  in  detail  and  in  relation  to  its 
several  component  elements  might  produce  if  it  were 
systematically  and  carefully  pursued  in  this  manner. 
The  study  is  laborious,  but  the  results  are  correspond- 
ingly valuable,  particularly  when  it  appears  that  from 
no  other  branch  of  knowledge  can  we  hope  to  obtain 
information  as  to  what  our  ancestors  thought  and 
believed. 

1.  As  an  act  of  sorcery  the  mould  from  the  church- 

\s 

yard  known  as  the  '  meels/  was  in  north-eastern  Scot- 
land used  for  throwing  into  the  mill-race  in  order  to 


114         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

stop  the  mill-wheel.1  That  the  mould  is  not  used  because 
it  is  a  consecrated  element  of  the  churchyard  is  sug- 
gested by  the  harmful  result  expected,  and  its  connection 
with  the  dead  is  the  only  alternative  cause  for  its  use ; 
so  that  our  examination  of  this  superstitious  practice 
points  to  some  as  yet  unexplained  use  of  products 
closely  connected  with  the  dead.  The  importance  of 
this  conclusion  is  shown  by  an  Irish  usage — people 
taking  the  clay  or  mould  from  the  graves  of  priests 
and  boiling  it  with  milk  as  a  decoction  for  the  cure  of 
disease.2  Again,  in  Shetland  a  stitch  in  the  side  was 
cured  by  applying  to  the  part  some  mould  dug  from  a 
grave  and  heated,  it  being  an  essential  of  the  ceremony 
that  the  mould  must  be  taken  from  and  returned  to  the 
grave  before  sunset.3  In  the  first  of  these  cases  the  grave 
mould  is  used  as  food,  and  it  is  this  circumstance  more 
than  the  supposed  cures  effected  by  it  which  must  be  taken 
as  the  lowest  point  in  the  genealogy  of  this  item  of  folklore. 
The  next  link  in  the  genealogy  shows  that  the  use 
of  grave-mould  is  only  a  substitution  for  the  use  of  the 
corpse  itself.  The  Irish  have  a  superstition  that  to 
dip  the  left  hand  of  a  corpse  in  the  milk-pail  has 
the  effect  of  making  the  milk  produce  considerably 

1  Gregor,  Folklore,  p.  216. 

2  Wilde's  Beauties  of  the  Boyne,  p.  45 ;  Croker,  Researches  in 
South  of  Ireland,  p.  170;  of.  Rev.  Celt.  v.  358.     The  dew  collected 
from  the  grave  of  the  last  man  buried  in  the  churchyard  as  an  applica- 
tion for  the  cure  of  goitre  may  perhaps  be  a  remnant  of  this  class 
of  belief.    It  occurs  at  Launceston. — Dyer,  English  Folklore,  p.  150. 

3  Rogers,  Social  Life  in  Scotland,  iii.  226 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLOEE       115 

more  cream  and  of  a  richer  and  better  kind.1  A  new 
element  presented  by  the  analysis  of  this  form  of  the 
custom  is  that  the  result  is  not  connected  with  the 
cure  of  disease  but  with  the  increase  of  dairy  produce. 
The  limitation  to  a  particular  part  of  the  dead  body,  the 
left  hand,  disappears  in  a  custom  once  obtaining  at  Oran 
in  Roscommon.  There  a  child  was  disinterred  and  its 
arms  cut  off,  to  be  employed  in  the  performance  of  certain 
mystic  rights,  the  nature  of  which  unfortunately  are  not 
stated  by  my  authority.  2  Scottish  witches  are  credited 
with  opening  graves  for  the  purpose  of  taking  out  joints 
of  the  fingers  and  toes  of  dead  bodies,  with  some  of  the 
winding  sheet,  in  order  to  prepare  a  powder  for  their 
magical  purposes.3  In  Lincolnshire  a  small  portion  of 
the  human  skull  was  taken  from  the  graveyard  and 
grated,  to  be  used  in  a  mixture  and  eaten  for  the  cure 
of  fits.4  For  the  cure  of  epilepsy  near  Kirkwall  a  similar 
practice  was  resorted  to,  while  in  Caithness  and  the 
western  isles  the  patient  was  made  to  drink  from  a 
suicide's  skull.5 

Fresh  light  is  thrown  upon  the  nature  of  the  magical 
practices  alluded  to  in  these  examples  by  the  evidence 
afforded  by  Scottish  trials  for  witchcraft.  From  the  trial 
of  John  Brugh,  November  24,  1643,  it  appears  that  he 
went  to  the  churchyard  of  Glendovan  on  three  several 
occasions,  and  each  time  took  up  a  corpse.  '  The  flesch  of 

1  Croker,  op.  cit.  p.  234. 

"  Wilde,  Irish  Popular  Superstitions,  p.  28. 

3  Brand,  Pop.  Antiq.  iii.  10.         4  Dyer,  English  Folklore,  p.  147. 

4  Rogers,  Social  Life  in  Scotland,  iii.  225. 

i  2 


116         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

the  quhilk  corps  was  put  aboue  the  byre  and  stable-dure 
headis  '  of  certain  individuals  to  destroy  their  cattle.1 
This  practice,  when  subjected  to  analysis,  becomes 
divided  into  two  heads  : 

(1)  The  distribution  of  human  flesh  among  owners  of 
cattle. 

(2)  The  object  of  such  distribution  to  do  harm  to 
these  cattle-owners. 

We  have  thus  arrived  step  by  step  at  the  bodies  of 
the  dead  being  used  for  some  undetermined  purposes. 
Another  group  of  such  practices  surviving  in  folklore 
represents  by  symbolisation  a  still  further  step  in  the 
genealogy.  A  note  by  Bishop  White  Kennet  speaks 
of  a  '  custom  which  lately  obtained  at  Amersden  in  the 
county  of  Oxford,  where  at  the  burial  of  every  corps 
one  cake  and  one  flaggon  of  ale  just  after  the  interment 
were  brought  to  the  minister  in  the  church  porch.' 2 
This,  in  the  opinion  of  the  writer,  seems  '  a  remainder  ' 
of  the  custom  of  sin-eating,  and  it  is  probable  he  is 
right.  The  sin-eating  custom  is  thus  given  by  Aubrey  : 
'In  the  county  of  Hereford  was  an  old  custome  at 
funeralls  to  have  poor  people  who  were  to  take  upon 
them  all  the  sinnes  of  the  party  deceased.  The  manner 
was  that  when  the  corps  was  brought  out  of  the  house 
and  layd  on  the  biere,  a  loafe  of  bread  was  brought  out 
and  delivered  to  the  sinne-eater  over  the  corps,  as 
also  a  mazar  bowle  of  maple  (gossips  bowle)  full  of 

1  Dalyell,  Darlwr  Superstitions  of  Scotland,  p.  379. 

2  Aubrey's  Ilemaities  of  Qentilisme,  p.  24. 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY   OF  FOLKLOKE       117 

beer,  which  he  was  to  drinke  up,  and  sixpence  in  money, 
in  consideration  whereof  he  tooke  upon  him  (ipso  facto) 
all  the  sinnes  of  the  defunct,  and  freed  him  or  her  from 
walking  after  they  were  dead.'  '  Aubrey  specifically 
mentions  Hereford,  Ross,  Dynder  ('  volens  nolens  the 
parson  of  ye  Parish  '),  and  '  in  other  places  in  this 
countie,'  as  also  in  Breconshire,  at  Llangors, '  where  Mr. 
Gwin,  the  minister,  about  1640,  could  no  hinder  ye 
performing  of  this  ancient  custome,'  and  in  North 
Wales,  where,  instead  of  a  '  bowle  of  beere  they  have  a 
bowle  of  milke.' 

This  account  is  circumstantial  enough.  Bagford,  in 
his  well-known  letter  to  Hearne  (1715),  mentions  the 
same  custom  as  obtaining  in  Shropshire,  '  in  those 
villages  adjoyning  to  Wales.'  His  account  is  :  '  When  a 
person  dyed  there  was  notice  given  to  an  old  sire  (for 
so  they  called  him),  who  presently  repaired  to  the  place 
where  the  deceased  lay  and  stood  before  the  door  of  the 
house,  when  some  of  the  family  came  out  and  furnished 
him  with  a  cricket,  on  which  he  sat  down  facing  the 
door.  Then  they  gave  him  a  groat  which  he  put  in  his 
pocket ;  a  crust  of  bread  which  he  ate  ;  and  a  full  bowle 
of  ale  which  he  drank  off  at  a  draught.  After  this  he 
got  up  from  the  cricket  and  pronounced  with  a  com- 
posed gesture  the  ease  and  rest  of  the  soul  departed, 
for  which  he  would  pawn  his  own  soul.' 2  There  seems 
some  evidence  of  this  custom  being  in  vogue  at 

1  Aubrey's  Remaines  of  Gentilisme,  pp.  35,  36. 

2  Leland's  Collectanea,  i.  Ixxvi. 


118         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOEE 

Llandebie,  near  Swansea,  until  about  1850,1  where  the 
ceremony  was  not  unlike  that  described  as  having  been 
practised  in  the  west  of  Scotland.  '  There  were  persons,' 
says  Mr.  Napier,  '  calling  themselves  sin-eaters,  who 
when  a  person  died  were  sent  for  to  come  and  eat  the 
sins  of  the  deceased.  When  they  came  their  modus  oj>e- 
randi  was  to  place  a  plate  of  salt  and  a  plate  of  bread  on 
the  breast  of  the  corpse  and  repeat  a  series  of  incanta- 
tions, after  which  they  ate  the  contents  of  the  plates  and 
so  relieved  the  dead  person  of  such  sins  as  would  have 
kept  him  hovering  around  his  relations,  haunting  them 
with  his  imperfectly  purified  spirit,  to  their  great 
annoyance  and  without  satisfaction  to  himself/  2  The 
Welsh  custom,  as  described  by  Mr.  Moggridge,  adds 
one  important  detail  not  noted  with  reference  to  the 
other  customs — namely,  that  after  the  ceremony  the  sin- 

1  Archaologia  Cambrensis,  iii.   330  ;   Journ.    Antlirop.   I»it.  v. 
423  ;  Wirt  Sikes,  British  Goblins,  pp.  326,  327.     The  Welsh  practice 
of  the  relatives  of  the  deceased  distributing  bread  and  cheese  to 
the  poor  over  the  coffin  seems  to  me  to  confirm  the  evidence  for  the 
Welsh  sin-eater.    One  of  Elfric's  canons  says,  inter  alia, '  Do  not  eat 
and  drink  over  the  body  in  the  heathenish  manner.' — Wilkins,  Con- 
cilia, i.  255. 

2  Napier,  Folklore  of  the  West  of  Scotland,  p.  60.     I  am  not  quite 
satisfied  with  this  example.     Mr.  Napier  evidently  is  not  minutely 
describing  an  actual  observance,  and  in  his  book  he  frequently  refers 
to  customs  elsewhere.     In  this  instance  he  does  not  appear  to  be 
alluding  to  any  other  than  Scottish  customs,  and  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
his  details  differ  from  Aubrey's  and  Bagford's,  nor  can  I  trace  any 
authority  for  his  details  except  his  own  observation,  unless  it  be  from 
Mr.  Moggridge's  account  in  Arch.  Cambrensis,  which,  however,  it  does 
not  follow  exactly.  He  is  so  reliable  in  respect  of  all  his  own  notes  that 
I  should  not  doubt  this  if  it  were  not  for  the  certain  amount  of  vague- 
ness about  the  language. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   119 

eater  '  vanished  as  quickly  as  possible  from  the  general 
gaze.' 

The  chief  points  in  these  remarkable  customs  are  : 

(1 )  The  action  of  passing  the  food  over  the  corpse,  as 
if  thereby  to  signify  some  connection  with  the  corpse ; 

(2)  The  immediate  disappearance  of  the  sin-eater  ; 
and 

(3)  The  object  of  the  ceremony  to  prevent  the  spirit 
of  the  deceased  from  annoying  the  living. 

In  these  customs  clearly  something  is  symbolised 
by  the  supposed  eating  up  of  the  sins  of  the  deceased.1 
As  Mr.  Frazer  has  observed  in  reference  to  these  prac- 
tices, '  the  idea  of  sin  is  not  primitive.' 2  I  do  not 
think  with  Mr.  Frazer  that  the  older  idea  was  that 
death  was  carried  away  from  the  survivors.  Some- 
thing much  less  subtle  than  this  must  have  originated 
all  these  practices,  or  they  could  not  have  been  kept 
up  in  so  materialistic  a  form.  Folklore  tends  to  be- 
come less  material  as  it  decays ;  it  goes  off  into  almost 
shadowy  conceptions,  not  into  practices  which  of  them- 
selves are  horrid  and  revolting.  These  practices,  then, 
must  be  the  indicator  which  will  help  us  to  translate 
the  symbolism  of  folklore  into  the  usage  of  primitive 
life.  The  various  forms  of  the  survival  seem  to  indicate 

1  I  must  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  Mr.  Hartland  for  the 
use  I  make  of  the  custom  of  sin-eating.     He  was  good  enough  to 
draw  my  attention  to  a  study  of  the  subject  he  was  preparing,  and 
which  since  the  above  passage  was  written  he  has  read  before  the 
Folklore  Society. 

2  Frazer,  Golden  Bough,  ii.  152,  note ;  Miss  Burne  also  seems  to 
suggest  this  idea  (Shropshire  Folklore,  p.  202). 


120         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

that  we  have  here  a  group  of  customs  and  beliefs  relat- 
ing to  some  unknown  cult  of  the  dead — a  cult  which, 
when  it  was  relegated  to  the  position  of  a  survival  by 
some  foreign  force  which  arrested  development  and  only 
brought  decay  and  change,  showed  no  tendency  towards 
any  high  conception  of  future  bliss  for  the  deceased  in 
spirit-land  ;  a  cult  which  was  savage  in  conception,  savage 
in  the  methods  of  carrying  out  the  central  idea  which 
promoted  it,  savage,  too,  in  the  results  which  must  have 
flowed  from  it  and  affected  the  minds  and  associations 
of  its  actors. 

What  is  the  savage  idea  connected  with  the  dead  which 
underlies  these  gloomy  and  disgusting  practices  preserved 
in  folklore  ?  Let  me  recall  a  passage  in  Strabo  relating 
to  the  practices  of  early  British  savages.  The  inhabi- 
tants of  Ireland  were  cannibals,  but  they  also  '  deemed 
it  honourable  to  eat  the  bodies  of  their  deceased  parents.' l 
Now,  the  eating  of  dead  kindred  is  a  rite  practised  by 
savages  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  and  it  is  founded 
primarily  on  the  fear  which  savage  man  had  for  the 
spirits  of  the  dead. 

The  conception  of  fear  in  connection  with  the  dead 
is  still  retained  in  folklore.  Miss  Burne,  with  great 
reason,  attributes  the  popular  objection  to  carrying  a 
corpse  along  a  private  road  to  the  dread  lest  the  dead 
should  come  back  by  the  road  the  corpse  travelled.2  In 
Scotland  the  same  dread  is  expressed  by  the  curious 
practice  of  turning  upside  down  all  the  chairs  in  the 

1  Strabo,  lib.  iv.  cap.  v.  sect.  4,        -  Shropshire  Folklore,  p.  303. 

frtf*"^  /-*  • 

^*Z^~*     ^~ 

*• 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLOKE   121 

room  from  which  the  corpse  has  just  been  taken  j1  in  Eng- 
land by  the  practice  of  unhinging  the  gate  and  placing 
it  across  the  entrance,  and  of  carrying  the  corpse  to  the 
grave  by  a  roundabout  way.2-  There  is  also  the  practice 
in  Scotland  of  keeping  up  a  dance  all  night  after  a 
funeral,3  which  by  the  analogous  practice  among  the 
Nagas  of  India  must  be  attributed  to  the  desire  to  get 
rid  of  the  spirit  of  the  deceased.4  The  Caithness  Scots, 
too,  share  with  some  South  African  tribes  a  deep-rooted 
reluctance  to  speak  of  a  man  as  dead.5  The  point  of 
these  practices  is  that  the  -returning  ghosts  are  not 
friendly  to  their  earthly  kindred,  do  not  represent  the 
idea  of  friendly  ancestral  spirits  who,  in  their  newly- 
assumed  character  of  spirits,  will  help  their  kindred  on 
earth  to  get  through  the  troubles  of  life.  The  mere  fear 
of  ghosts,  which  is  the  outcome  of  modern  superstition, 
does  not  account  for  these  practices,  because  it  does  not 
cover  the  wide  area  occupied  by  them  in  savage  life 
which  Mr.  Frazer  has  so  skilfully  travelled  over.  In 
this  connection,  too,  I  would  mention  that,  associated  with 
the  outcast  and  the  criminal,  the  same  idea  of  fear  for  the 
ghosts  of  the  dead  is  perfectly  obvious,  which  introduces 
the  further  suggestion  that  in  this  case  we  have  evidence 

1  Folklore  Record,  ii.  214. 

2  Frazer,  in  Journ.  Anthroj).  Inst.  xv.  72. 

3  Napier,  Folklore  of  West  of  Scotland,  p.  66  ;  Folklore  Journal, 
iii.  281 ;  Pococke's  Tour  through  Scotland,  1760,  p.  88 

4  Owen's  Notes  on  tlie  Naga  Tribes,  p.  23. 

5  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.  xx.  121  ;  Lubbock,  Prehistoric  Times,  p. 
471 ;  it  is  also  an  Australian  belief. — Trans.  Ethnol.  Soc.  i.  299,  iii. 
40. 

_^—-^t.     £**-«£- 

-     f^-^L^L     £*-+4~^  &.-++*+£,   ^ 

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122         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

of  a  certain  degraded  class  of  the  modern  population 
becoming  identified  in  the  peasant  mind — in  the  minds 
of  those,  that  is,  who  have  kept  alive  the  oldest  instincts 
of  prehistoric  times — with  the  ideas  and  practices  which 
once  belonged  to  a  fallen  and  degraded  race  existing  in 
their  midst.  For  my  present  purpose  I  will  quote  from 
Mr.  Atkinson  the  following  passage  :  '  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  self-murderer  or  the  doer  of  some  atrocious  deed 
of  violence,  murder,  or  lust  was  buried  by  some  lonely 
roadside,  in  a  road-crossing,  or  by  the  wild  woodside, 
and  that  the  oak,  or  oftener  thorn  stake  was  driven 
through  his  breast.  These  characters  could  not  rest  in 
their  graves.  They  had  to  wander  about  the  scenes  of 
their  crimes  or  the  places  where  their  unhallowed 
carcases  were  deposited,  unless  they  were  prevented, 
and  as  they  wanted  the  semblance,  the  simulacrum,  the 
shadow  substance  of  their  bodies,  for  that  purpose,  the 
body  was  made  secure  by  pinning  it  to  the  bottom  of  the 
grave  by  aid  of  the  driven  stake.  And  there  were  other 
means  adopted  with  the  same  end  in  view.  The  head 
was  severed  from  the  body  and  laid  between  the  legs 
or  placed  under  the  arm — between  the  side  and  the  arm, 
that  is — or  the  feet  and  legs  were  bound  together  with 
a  strong  rope  ;  or  the  corpse  might  be  cut  up  into  some 
hollow  vessel  capable  of  containing  the  pieces,  and 
carried  away  quite  beyond  the  precincts  of  the  village 
and  deposited  in  some  bog  or  morass.' l  These  ghastly 

1  Atkinson, Forty  Years  in  a  Moorland  Parish,  pp.217,  218.  The 
modern  reason  for  these  doings  is  the  idea  of  '  ignominy,  abhorrence, 
execration,  or  what  not.' 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLOKE       123 

ceremonies  throw  much  light  on  the  old  folk-belief  as  to 
the  dead.  What  is  now  confined  to  the  suicide  or 
criminal  in  parts  of  England  is  identical  with  cere- 
monies performed  by  savage  tribes  for  all  their  dead,  and 
it  is  impossible  to  put  on  one  side  the  suggestion  that 
we  have  in  this  partial  survival  relics  of  a  conception  of 
the  dead  which  once  belonged  to  an  ethnic  division  of 
the  people,  and  not  to  a  caste  created  by  the  laws  of 
crime. 

I  am  anxious  in  this  first  attempt  at  definitely 
tracing  out  the  genealogy  of  a  particular  element  in 
folklore  to  show  clearly  that  the  process  is  a  justifiable 
one.  It  will  not  be  possible  in  all  instances  to  do  this, 
partly  on  account  of  space  and  partly  on  account  of  the 
singular  diversity  of  the  evidence.  But  in  this  instance 
the  attempt  may  perhaps  be  made,  and  I  will  first  pro- 
ceed to  set  down,  in  the  usual  manner  of  a  genealogy, 
the  various  stages  already  noted  in  this  case,  and  I 
will  then  set  down  the  parallel  genealogy  supplied  from 
savagery.  (See  page  124.) 

This  genealogy  seems  to  me  clear  and  definite,  and 
its  construction  is  singularly  free  from  any  process  of 
forced  restoration.  Looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of 
geographical  distribution,  it  has  to  be  pointed  out  that 
this  group  of  folklore  is  found  in  isolation  in  the  outer 
parts  of  the  country.  The  significance  of  its  distribu- 
tion in  certain  localities  must  be  taken  into  account,  and 
it  is  important  to  draw  attention  to  the  isolation  of  the 
several  examples.  It  clearly  does  not  represent  a  cult 


124 


ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 


Eating  of  dead  kindred 


British  savagery 


Modern  savagery 


Inhabitants 
of  Ireland 


Survival  in  folklore 


Belies  of  the  dead 
[Practice  treated  in  revolt- 
arrested]  ing  manner 


Dead  body=food  taken  from 
to  eat  the  sin 
of  the  deceased 


Dead  body = cut  up  and  placed 
over  cattle  byres 


Development 
or  change 

Dead  body = food  eaten 

out  of  the  hand. J 


Dead  body=distributed 
among 
community : 


Pounded 

bones  or 

ashes 


eaten  by 
kinsmen ' 


Water  in = drank  by 
which  body  kinsmen 5 
is  placed 


Corpse  hand = dipped  in  milk 
for  increaae  of 
supply 

Practice 

Corpse  fingers=magic  rites  of  still 

and  toes        witches,  harmful(?)  continued 
by  many 
races' 

Corpse  arms=magic  rites 
«nd  legs       unknown 


Grave  mould = cure  of  disease 
[of  priest] 


Grave  mould=harm  to  mill. 

1  Ancient  Peruvians  (Dormer,  Origin  of  Primitive  Superstitions, 
p.  151;  Hakluyt,  Rites  of  the  Incas,p.  94);  Battahs  of  Sumatra 
(Featherman,  Soc.  Hist.,  2nd  div.,  336;  Journ.  Ind.  Arch.  ii.  241 ; 
Marsden,  Sumatra,  p.  390) ;  Philippine  Islanders  (Featherman,  op. 
tit.  p.  496) ;  Gonds  and  Kookies  of  India  (Rowney,  Wild  Tribes  of 
India,  p.  7;  Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,  xvi.  14),  Queensland  (Journ. 
Anthrop.  Inst.  ii.  179;  viii.  254;  J.  D.  Lang's  Queensland,  pp.  333, 

2  See  next  page.    3  See  next  page.    4  See  next  page.    5  See  next  page. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   125 

of  the  dead  generally  present  in  the  minds  of  the 
peasantry.  A  totally  different  set  of  beliefs  has  to  be 
examined  for  this,  and  to  these  beliefs  I  now  turn  for 
evidence  of  that  inconsistency  in  folklore  which  I  have 
urged  shows  distinct  ethnic  origins.  The  facts  will  then 
stand  as  follows  :  On  the  one  hand  there  is  a  definite 
representation  of  a  cult  of  the  dead  based  on  the  fear 
of  dead  kindred  and  found  in  isolated  patches  of  the 
country ;  011  the  other  hand  there  is  a  definite  represen- 
tation of  a  cult  of  the  dead  based  on  the  love  of  dead 
kindred  and  found  generally  prevalent  over  the  country. 
The  survivals  of  this  cult  in  folklore  are  numerous. 
As  soon  as  death  has  taken  place  doors  and  windows  are 
opened  to  allow  the  spirit  to  join  the  home  of  departed 
ancestors  ;l  the  domestic  animals  are  removed  from  the 
house  ;2  the  bees  are  given  some  of  the  funeral  food  and 

355-357) ;  Victoria  (Smythe's  Aborigines  of  Victoria,  i.  pp.  xxix.  120)  ; 
Maoris  (Taylor's  Netv  Zealand,  p.  22 1).  All  these  examples  are  not, 
it  should  be  stated,  attributed  to  fear  of  dead  kindred ;  but  the 
whole  point  as  to  the  origin  of  the  practice  is  one  for  argument  and 
more  evidence.  These  examples  do  not  exhaust  the  list ;  they  are 
the  most  typical. 

2  The  Kangras  of  India.— Punjab  N.  %  Q.,  i.  86. 

3  The  Koniagas  (Spencer,  Principles  of  Sociology,  p.  262.     It  is 
remarkable  that  this  custom  is  the  alternative  to  immersing  the  dead 
body  and  drinking  the  water)  ;  Australians  (Smythe's  Aborigines 
of  Victoria,  i.  121 ;  Featherman,  op.  tit.  pp.  157,  161). 

4  Tarianas  and  Tucanos. — Spencer,  op.  cit.  262. 

5  Koniagas  (see  note  3). 

1  Brand,  ii.  231 ;  Henderson,  Folklore  of  Northern  Counties,  pp. 
53,  56  ;  Dyer,  English  Folklore,  p.  230. 

2  Napier,  p.  60. 


126         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

are  solemnly  told  of  the  master's  death  by  the  nearest  of 
kin  j1  the  fire  at  the  domestic  hearth  is  put  out  ;2  careful 
watch  is  made  of  the  corpse  until  its  burial  ;3  soul-mass 
cakes  are  prepared  and  eaten.4 

A  singular  unanimity  prevails  as  to  the  reasons  for 
these  customs,  which  may  be  summed  up  as  indicating 
the  one  desire  to  procure  a  safe  and  speedy  passage  of 
the  soul  to  spirit-land,  or,  as  it  is  put  in  modern  folklore, 
'  lest  the  devil  should  gain  power  over  the  dead  person.'5 

In  the  removal  of  the  domestic  animals  we  can  trace 
the  old  rite  of  funeral  sacrifice.  Originally,  says  Napier, 
the  reason  for  the  exclusion  of  dogs  and  cats  arose  from  the 
belief  that  if  either  of  these  animals  should  chance  to  leap 
over  the  corpse  and  be  permitted  to  live  the  devil  would 
gain  power  over  the  dead  person.  In  Northumberland 
this  negative  way  of  putting  the  case  is  replaced  by  a 
positive  record  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  animals  that  leapt 
over  the  coffin.6  But  probably  human  sacrifice,  that  piti- 
able kindness  to  the  dead,  is  symbolised  in  the  Highland 
custom  at  funerals,  where  friends  of  the  deceased  person 
fought  until  blood  was  drawn — the  drawing  of  blood 
being  held  essential.7  The  real  nature  of  the  soul-mass 

1  The  examples  of  this  custom  are  very  numerous.    I  have  sum- 
marised the  principal  of  them  in  Folklore,  iii.  12. 
*  Pennant,  Tour  in  Scotland,  i.  44. 
1  Napier,  Folklore  of  Went  Scotland,  p.  62. 
4  Brand,  i.  392 ;  ii.  289.  *  Napier,  pp.  60,  62. 

6  Henderson,  p.  59.    Cats  are  locked  up  while  the  corpse  remains 
in  the  house  in  Orkney  (Gough's  Sepulchral  Monuments,  vol.  i.  p. 
Ixxv)  ;  and  in  Devonshire  (Dyer's  Englith  Folklore,  p.  109). 

7  Folklore  Journal,  iii.  281. 


THE   ETHNIC    GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLOEE       127 

cakes  as  the  last  vestiges  of  the  old  rite  of  funeral 
sacrifice  to  the  manes  of  the  deceased  has  been  proved 
by  Dr.  Tylor.1  The  striking  custom  of  putting  out  the 
fire  is  to  be  interpreted  as  a  desire  not  to  detain  the 
soul  at  the  altar  of  the  domestic  god,  where  the  spirits 
of  deified  ancestors  were  worshipped.  And  the  message 
to  the  bees  is  clearly  best  explained,  I  think,  as  being 
given  to  these  winged  messengers  of  the  gods 2  so  that 
they  may  carry  the  news  to  spirit-land  of  the  speedy 
arrival  of  a  new-comer. 

All  these  solemnities  betoken  very  plainly  that  we 
are  dealing  with  the  survivals  in  folklore  of  the  Aryan 
worship  of  deceased  ancestors,  one  of  the  most  generally 
accepted  conclusions  of  comparative  culture.3  I  need 
scarcely  point  out  how  far  removed  it  is,  as  a  matter 
of  development  in  culture,  from  the  more  primitive 
fear  of  dead  kindred.  Manes  worship,  based  upon 

1  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  38. 

2  The  bees  supplied  the  sacred  mead  and  were  therefore  in 
direct  contact  with  the  gods.      Cf.  Schrader,  Prehistoric  Antiquities 
of  the  Aryans,  p.  321. 

3  Hearn,  Aryan  Household,  p.  54;  Maine,  Ancient  Lam,  p.  191  ; 
Spencer,  Principles  of  Sociology,  pp.  314-316 ;  De  Coulanges,  Cite 
Antique,  pp.  33,  71 ;  Kelly,  Indo-European  Folklore,  p.  45  ;  Revue 
Celtique,  ii.  486  ;  Cox,  Introd.  to  Myth,  and  Folklore,  p.  168  ;  Elton 
Origins  of  Engl.  Hist.,  p.  211,  are  the  most  accessible  authorities,  to 
which  I  may  perhaps  add  my  Folklore  Relics  of  Early  Village  Life, 
pp.  90-123.     Rogers,  in  his  Social  Life  in  Scotland,  iii.  340, 341,  has 
a  curious  note  on  the  lares  familiares or  wraiths  of  the  Highlanders, 
connecting  them  with  the  ghosts  of  departed  ancestors.     I  note 
Schrader's  objection  in  Prehistoric  Antiquities  of  the  Aryan  Peoples, 
p.  425,  that  the  unsatisfactory  state  of  the  Greek  evidence  prevents 
him  from  accepting  the  general  view,  but  I  think  the  weight  of 
evidence  on  the  other  side  tells  against  this  objection. 


128         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

the  fear  of  the  dead,  is  found  in  many  parts  of  the 
primitive  world ; l  the  worship  of  a  domestic  god, 
based  upon  his  helpfulness,  is  found  also.2  But,  except 
among  the  Aryan  peoples,  these  two  cults  do  not  seem 
to  have  coalesced  into  a  family  religion.  In  this  family 
religion,  centred  round  the  domestic  hearth  where  the 
ancestral  god  resided,  the  fear  of  dead  kindred  has 
given  way  before  the  conception  of  the  dead  ancestor 
who  had  '  passed  into  a  deity  [and]  simply  goes  on 
protecting  his  own  family  and  receiving  suit  and  ser- 
vice from  them  as  of  old ;  the  dead  chief  [who]  still 
watches  over  his  own  tribe,  still  holds  his  authority  by 
helping  friends  and  harming  enemies,  still  rewards  the 
right  and  sharply  punishes  the  wrong.' 3  And,  in  the 
meantime,  the  horrid  practices  and  theories  of  savagery 
which  we  have  previously  examined  are  contrasted, 
in  Aryan  culture,  with  the  funeral  ceremony  whereby 
the  kinsmen  of  the  deceased  perform  the  last  rites,  and 
with  the  theory  that  these  rites  are  necessary  to  ensure 
that  the  ghosts  of  the  dead  take  their  place  in  the 
bright  home  of  deified  ancestors,4  both  practice  and 
theory  being  represented  in  folklore  by  the  absolute 
veto  upon  disturbing  the  graves  of  the  dead.6 

These  facts  of  Aryan  life,  indeed,  bring  us  to  that 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  103-109 ;  Spencer,  Principles  of 
Sociology,  pp.  304-313.  2  Cf.  my  Folklore  Eelicn,  pp.  85-90. 

3  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  103. 

4  This  is  a  common  Greek  and  Hindu  conception. —  Odyss.  xi.  54 
Iliad,  xxiii.  72 ;  Monier  Williams,  Indian  Wisdom,  pp.  206,  255 

5  Choice  Notes,  Folklore,  p.  8. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   129 

sharp  contrast  which  it  presents  to  savage  life  in  its 
conception  of  the  family.  If  ancestors  are  revered  and 
this  reverence  finds  expression  in  the  nature  of  the 
funeral  customs,  so  are  children  brought  into  the  pale 
of  the  family  by  customs  indicative  of  some  sacred  cere- 
mony connecting  the  new  house  inmates  with  the  gods 
of  the  race.  I  agree  with  Kelly  in  his  interpretation 
of  the  stories  of  the  feeding  the  infant  Zeus  with  the 
honey  from  the  sacred  ash  and  from  bees.  '  Among 
the  ancient  Germans,'  says  Kelly,  '  that  sacred  food  was 
the  first  that  was  put  to  the  lips  of  the  new-born  babe. 
So  it  was  among  the  Hindus,  as  appears  from  a  passage 
in  one  of  their  sacred  books.  The  father  puts  his 
mouth  to  the  right  ear  of  the  new-born  babe,  and  mur- 
murs three  times,  "  Speech  !  Speech  !  "  Then  he  gives 
it  a  name.  Then  he  mixes  clotted  milk,  honey,  and 
butter,  and  feeds  the  babe  with  it  out  of  pure  gold.  It 
is  found  in  a  surprising  shape  among  one  Celtic  people. 
Lightfoot  says  that  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  at 
the  birth  of  an  infant,  the  nurse  takes  a  green  stick  of 
ash,  one  end  of  which  she  puts  into  the  fire,  and  while 
it  ^s  burning  receives  in  a  spoon  the  sap  that  oozes 
from  the  other,  which  she  administers  to  the  child  as 
its  first  food.  Some  thousands  of  years  ago  the  ancestors 
of  this  Highland  nurse  had  known  the  fraxinus  ornus  in 
Arya,  and  now  their  descendant,  imitating  their  practice 
in  the  cold  North,  but  totally  ignorant  of  its  true  mean- 
ing, puts  the  nauseous  sap  of  her  native  ash  into  the 

K 


180         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

mouth  of  her  hapless  charge.' '  I  have  quoted  this  long 
passage  because  it  shows,  as  Kelly  expresses  it,  '  the 
amazing  toughness  of  popular  tradition,'  and  because  it 
brings  into  contrast  the  savage  practice  of  the  Irish 
mothers  who  dedicated  their  children  to  the  sword. 
Solinus  tells  us  that  the  mother  put  the  first  food  of 
her  new-born  son  on  the  sword  of  her  husband,  and, 
lightly  introducing  it  into  his  mouth,  expressed  a  wish 
that  he  might  never  meet  death  otherwise  than  in  war 
and  amid  arms.  Even .  after  the  introduction  of 
Christianity  the  terrible  rites  of  war  were  kept  up  at 
the  ceremonials  of  infancy.  Train  says  that  a  custom 
identical  with  that  just  quoted  from  Solinus  was  kept 
up,  prior  to  the  Union,  in  Annandale  and  other  places 
along  the  Scottish  border,2  and  Camden  records  that 
the  right  arm  of  children  was  kept  unchristened  so  that 
it  might  deal  a  more  deadly  blow.3  The  same  usage 
obtained  in  the  borderland  of  England  and  Scotland,4 
and  it  is  no  doubt  the  parent  of  the  more  general 
custom  in  the  north  of  England  not  to  wash  the  right 
arm  of  the  new-born  infant,  so  that  it  could  the  better 
obtain  riches.5 

Not  only  are  these  savage  rites  in  direct  contrast  to 
the  food  rites  of  the  early  Aryan  birth  ceremony,  but 
they  also  stand  out  against  the  relics  of  Aryan  house- 

1  Kelly,  Indo-European  Folklore,  pp.  145,  146. 

*  History  of  Isle  of  llfan,  ii.  84,  note  1 . 

*  Britannia,  s.v.,  '  Ireland.' 

4  Guthrie,  Old,  Scottish,  Customs,  p.  144. 

5  Henderson,  Folklore  of  Northern  Counties,  p.  16. 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLOEE        131 

birth  preserved  in  folklore,  and  which  are  centred  round 
the  domestic  hearth.1  The  child,  put  on  a  cloth  spread 
over  a  basket  containing  provisions,  was  conveyed 
thrice  round  the  crook  of  the  chimney,  or  was  handed 
across  the  fire  in  those  places  where  the  hearth  was  still 
in  the  centre  of  the  room.2  In  Shropshire  the  first 
food  is  a  spoonful  of  butter  and  sugar.3 

But,  again,  there  is  another  contrast  to  be  drawn. 
It  is  the  father  who,  according  to  Pennant,  prepares 
the  basket  of  food  and  places  it  across  the  fire,  and  it  is 
the  father,  in  more  primitive  Aryan  custom,  who  mixes 
the  sacred  food  and  first  feeds  the  child.  In  the  Irish)' 
rites  just  noticed  it  is  the  mother  who  acts  the  part  ofj;, 
domestic  priest.  This  contrast  is  a  very  significant  one. 
The  principle  of  matriarchy  is  more  primitive  than 
that  of  patriarchy,  and  it  may  point  to  a  distinction  of 
race.  The  position  of  the  mother  in  Irish  birth  rites  is 
not  an  accidental  one.  It  is  of  permanent  moment  as 
an  element  in  folklore.  Mothers  in  many  places  retain 
to  this  day  their  maiden  names,4  and  this  in  former  days, 
if  not  at  present,  suggests  that  children  followed  their 
mother's  rather  than  their  father's  name  and  kindred. 
The  importance  of  these  considerations  in  connection 
with  birth  ceremonies  is  clearly  shown  by  the  fact  of  the 

1  Hearn,  Aryan  Household,  p.  73. 

2  Gordon  Gumming,  In  the  Hebrides,  p.   101  ;  Dalyell,  Darker 
Superstitions  of  Scotland,  p.  176  ;    Pennant,  Tour  in  the  Highlands, 
iii.  46. 

3  Burne,  Shropshire  Folklore,  p.  28-1. 

4  Athlone  (Mason's  Stat.  Ace.  of  Ireland,  iii.   72)  ;  Knockando, 
Elginshire  {New  Stat.  Ace.  of  Scotland,  xiii.  72). 

*  -1    *"" 

***  •»••*»  ' 


132         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

survival  of  the  singular  custom  of  the  '  couvade,'  where 
the  husband  takes  to  his  bed  at  the  birth  of  a  child 
and  goes  through  the  pretence  of  being  ill.  '  The 
strange  custom  of  the  couvade,'  says  Professor  Rhys, 
'  was  known  in  Ireland,  at  least  in  Ulster,  and  when 
the  great  invasion  of  that  province  took  place  under 
the  leadership  of  Ailill  and  Medb,  with  their  Firbolg 
and  other  forces,  they  found  that  all  the  adult  males 
of  the  kingdom  of  Conchobar  Mac  Nessa  were  laid  up, 
so  that  none  of  them  could  stir  hand  or  foot  to  defend 
his  country  against  invasion  excepting  Cuchulainn  and 
his  father  alone.' l  No  doubt  this  legend  takes  us  into 
the  realms  of  mythology,  to  the  battles  and  doings  ot 
gods  rather  than  of  men  ;  but  Professor  Rhys  has  shown 
good  cause  for  believing  that  the  mythological  reason  for 
the  death  or  inactivity  of  the  Ultonian  heroes  had 
ceased  to  be  intelligible  at  an  early  date,  '  long,  pro- 
bably, before  any  Aiyan  wanderer  had  landed  in  these 
islands,'  and  so  the  persistence  of  the  myth  of  the 
Ultonian  inactivity  naturally  came  to  be  interpreted 
sooner  or  later  in  the  light  of  the  only  custom  that 
seemed  to  make  it  intelligible — namely,  that  of  the 
couvade.  Without  concerning  ourselves  about  the 
mythology  connected  with  this  particular  episode,  here 
is  the  custom  itself  standing  out  clearly  and  distinctly, 
and  its  duration  of  '  four  days  and  five  nights '  may  be 
the  period  allotted  to  the  primitive  formula.  It  is  to  be 

1   Celtic  HeatJiendmn,^.  627  ;  ef.  pp.  140,  363,  471,  482,  627,  646 
Rev.  Celt.  vii.  227. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   133 

traced  also  in  Scotland.  A  man  who  had  incurred  the 
resentment  of  Margaret  Hutchesone  '  that  same  night 
took  sicknes :  and  had  panes  as  a  woman  in  chyld- 
birth.' l  On  the  borders  of  Scotland,  as  lately  as  the 
year  1772,  there  was  pointed  out  to  Mr.  Pennant  the 
offspring  of  a  woman  whose  pains  had  been  transferred 
to  her  husband  by  the  midwife.  The  legends  of  the 
saints  relate  that  Merinus,  a  future  bishop,  having  been 
refused  access  to  the  castle  of  some  Irish  potentate  whose 
spouse  was  then  in  labour,  and  treated  with  contempt, 
prayed  for  the  transference  of  her  sufferings  to  him,  which 
ensued  immediately.2  In  Yorkshire,  too,  a  custom 
exists,  or  existed,  which  seems  without  doubt  to  be  a 
survival  of  this  peculiar  custom.  •  When  an  illegitimate 
child  is  born  it  is  a  point  of  honour  with  the  girl  not  to 
reveal  the  father,  but  the  mother  of  the  girl  goes  out  to 
look  for  him.  and  the  first  man  she  finds  keeping  his  bed 
is  he.' 3  These  are  the  last  remnants  in  custom,  as  well 
as  in  tradition,  of  a  singularly  symbolical  practice, 
which  had  to  do  with  some  aspect  of  society  when 
motherhood,  not  fatherhood,  was  the  initial  point  of 
birthright,  and  which,  in  the  opinion  of  most  writers 
who  have  investigated  the  subject,  is  to  be  classed  as 
non- Aryan  in  origin — an  opinion  which  is  fortified  by 
its  prevalence  among  the  Basque  people  of  to-day,  while 
elsewhere  in  Europe  it  is  found  only  by  digging  amongst 

1  Quoted  in  Dalyell's  Darker  Svj)erstitwns,  p.  133. 

2  Pennant,  Tour  1 772,  p.  79. 

3  Academy,  xxv.  p.  112.     Unfortunately  the  exact  place  in  York- 
shire where  this  custom  obtains  is  not  stated. 


134         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

*  the  mass  of  folklore,  and  then  only  in  such  isolation  as 

to  suggest  that  it  does  not  belong  to  the  main  current 
~-s\  -j  of  traditional  peasant  life. 

Alike,  then,  in  customs  relating  to  the  dead  and  in 
customs  relating  to  birth  there  are  two  streams  of 
thought,  not  one.  The  one  is  savage,  the  other  is 
Aryan.  That  both  are  represented  in  folklore  indicates 
that  they  were  arrested  in  their  development  by  some 
forces  hostile  to  them,  and  pushed  back  to  exist  as  sur- 
vivals if  they  were  to  exist  at  all.  At  the  moment  of 
this  arrest  the  one  must  have  been  practised  by  savages, 
and  we  may  postulate  that  the  arresting  force  was  the 
incoming  Aryan  culture ;  the  other  must  have  been 
practised  by  Aryans,  and  we  may  postulate  that  the 
arresting  force  was  Christianity.  Thus  the  presence  of 
savage  culture  and  Aryan  culture,  represented  by 
savages  and  Aryans,  is  proved  by  the  evidence  of  folk- 
lore.1 

2.  It  is  possible  to  compare  the  cult  of  the  dead,  which 
has  just  been  traced  out  in  its  dual  line  of  genealogy, 
with  a  practice  which  relates  to  the  treatment  of  the 
living.  Human  life  among  savages  is  not  valued  ex- 
cept for  what  it  is  worth  to  the  tribe.  Female  children 
and  the  aged  and  infirm  are  alike  sacrificed  to  the 
primitive  law  of  economics,  and  no  sacred  ties  of  kinship 
step  across  to  thwart  the  stern  necessities  of  savage  life. 

1  Mr.  Elton  declares  for  the  pre- Celtic  origin  of  the  sin-eating, 
among  other  customs.  They  '  can  hardly  be  referred  to  any  other 
origin  than  the  persistence  of  ancient  habits  among  the  descendants 
of  the  Silurian  tribes.' — Origin g  of  English  History,  p.  179. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   135 

Within  the  memory  of  credible  witnesses,  says  Miss 
Burne,  affectionate  relatives  have  been  known  to  hasten 
the  moment  of  death,  and  she  quotes  a  singular  case  of 
strangulation/  in    support    of  her   general    statement.1 
Aubrey  has  preserved  an  old  English  '  countrie  story  ' 
of  '  the  holy  mawle,  which  (they  fancy)  hung  behind  the 
church  dore,  which,  when  the  father  was  seaventie,  the 
sonne  might  fetch  to  knock  his  father  on  the  head 
effete  and  of  no  more    use.' *     In  a  fifteenth-century 
MS.  of  prose  romances,  Sir  Percival,  in  his  adventures  in  £*f* 
quest  of  the  Holy  Grail,  being  at  one  time  ill  at  ease, 
congratulates  himself  that  he  is  not  like  those  men  of 
Wales,  where  sons  pull  their  fathers  out  of  bed  and  kill 
them  tojsavejthe  disgrace  of  their  dying  in  bed.3/   Here 
are  three  distinct  references  to  the  custom  of  killing  the  s 

O  lfc*t        t*r       •---  L*->****-, 

aged,  and  it  seems  impossible  to  get  away  from  the  dis- 
agreeable conclusion  that  the  actual  practice  has  not  so 
long  since  died  out  from  amongst  us.4  Its  opposition  to 
the  Aryan  conception  of  the  sacred  ties  of  kindred  does 
not  need  proof,  and  I  have  attempted  to  trace  out  the 
origin  of  some  Scottish  and  English  tales  as  due  to  the  ' 
first  Aryan  observation  of  this  strange  practice  of  their  /~~ / •• 

*4~*~A    •*-• 

non-Aryan  opponents.5  n^~ 

3.  I  want  to  point  out  that  these  customs,  illustrat-    ~~-— 

J-  ' 

*^*-H 

1  Shropshire  Folklore,  p.  297. 

4  Remalnes  of  Gentilisme  and  Judaisme,  p.  19. 

1  Nutt,  Legend  of  the  Holy  Grail,  p.  44. 

4  The  practice  is  recorded  in  Prussia  and  Sweden. — See  Keysler, 
quoted  by  Elton,  Origins  of  Eng.  Hist.,  p.  91,  and  Geiger,  Hist. 
Sweden,  pp.  31,  32.  5  See  Folklore,  i.  206. 


136         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

ing  the  position  of  enmity  arid  fear  between  man  and 
man,  and  opposed,  therefore,  to  the  theory  of  tribal  kin- 
ship, where  men  of  one  kin  are  knit  together  by  ties 
which,  if  not  to  be  properly  characterised  by  the  term 
'  love,'  at  all  events  allay  the  feelings  of  enmity,  become 
of  singular  importance  as  a  test  of  the  culture  of  a 
people  when  the  evidence  becomes  cumulative.  If  when 
kindred  are  dead  they  are  feared  as  enemies,  if  when 
they  cease  to  be  of  use  to  the  community  they  are 
promptly  despatched  to  the  land  of  spirits,  it  would  be 
a  part  of  the  same  attitude  of  man  towards  man  that 
sickness  would  be  caused  by  the  devilish  practices  of 
men,  and  might  be  alleviated  by  the  sacrifice  of  one 
human  being  for  another.  There  is,  in  the  presence  of 
such  practices,  no  sacred  tribal  life  to  preserve  and 
cherish  such  as  there  was  in  Aryan  society,  and  it  seems 
certain  that  this  group  of  custom  and  belief  belongs  to 
a  level  of  culture  lower  than  Aryan.  I  proceed,  then,  to 
examine  the  evidence  for  the  sacrifice  of  a  human  being 
as  a  cure  for  disease. 

We  start  off  with  a  practice  performed  upon  animals, 
one  animal  in  a  herd  being  sacrificed  for  the  herd.  That 
this  custom  does  not  obtain  among  modern  pastoral  tribes 
of  savages  shows  that  it  is  the  first  stage  in  our  examina- 
tion, because  it  suggests  that  the  folk  usage  is  not  in  its 
original  form,  and  that  probably  from  the  fact  of  animals 
being  represented  therein  something  is  symbolised  by 
them  which,  if  explained,  would  give  us  the  original 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLOKE   137 

form.1  Mr.  Forbes  Leslie  2  and  other  authorities  have 
collected  some  evidence  together,  and  I  rearrange  it,  with 
further  illustrations,  in  the  following  order.  Within 
twenty  miles  of  the  metropolis  of  Scotland  a  relative  of 
Professor  Simpson  offered  up  a  live  cow  as  a  sacrifice  to 
the  spirit  of  the  murrain.3  Sir  Arthur  Mitchell  records 
another  example  in  the  county  of  Moray.4  Grimm  cites 
a  remarkable  case  occurring  in  1767  in  the  Island  of 
Mull.  In  consequence  of  a  disease  among  the  black 
cattle  the  people  agreed  to  perform  an  incantation, 
though  they  esteemed  it  a  wicked  thing.  They  carried 
to  the  top  of  Carnmoor  a  wheel  and  nine  spindles  of 
oak-wood.  They  extinguished  every  fire  in  every  house 
within  sight  of  the  hill ;  the  wheel  was  then  turned  from 
'  east  to  west  over  the  nine  spindles  long  enough  to  produce 
fire  by  friction.  If  the  fire  was  not  produced  before 
noon  the  incantation  lost  its  effect.  They  then  sacrificed 
a  heifer,  cutting  in  pieces,  and  burning  while  yet  alive, 
the  diseased  part.  They  then  lighted  their  own  hearths 
from  the  pile,  and  ended  by  feasting  on  the  remains. 
Words  of  incantation  were  repeated  by  an  old  man 
from  Morven,  who  continued  speaking  all  the  time  the 
fire  was  being  raised.5  Keating  speaks  of  the  custom 

1  The  great  cattle -rearing  tribes,  Kaffirs,  Todas,  and  others, 
though  they  perform  various  significant  ceremonies  in  connection 
with  their  herds,  do  not,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover, 
sacrifice  one  of  the  herd  for  the  benefit  of  the  remainder. 

-  Early  Racus  of  Scotland,  i.  84,  et  seq. 

3  Proc.  Soc.  Antiq.  Scot.  iv.  33. 

1  Ibid.  p.  260 ;  Gordon  Camming,  In  the  Hebrides,  p.  194. 

'  Grimm,  Tent.  Myth.  p.  608. 


138  ETHNOLOGY   IN  FOLKLOEE 

as  a  general  one  in  Ireland,  the  chief  object  of  the 
ceremony  being  to  preserve  the  animals  from  contagious 
disorders  for  the  year.1  Dalyell  notes  from  the  Scottish 
Trials  that  a  woman  endeavoured  to  repress  the  progress 
of  the  distemper  among  her  cattle  by  taking  a  live  ox, 
a  cat,  and  a  quantity  of  salt,  and  burying  all  together  in  a 
deep  hole  in  the  ground  '  as  ane  sacrifice  to  the  devill.' 2 

In  Wales,  when  a  violent  disease  broke  out  amongst 
the  horned  cattle,  the  farmers  of  the  district  where  it 
raged  joined  to  give  up  a  bullock  for  a  victim,  which 
was  carried  to  the  top  of  a  precipice  from  whence  it  was 
thrown  down.  This  was  called  '  casting  a  captive  to  the 
devil.' 3  In  Scotland  and  also  Yorkshire  the  sacrificed 
cow  was  buried  beneath  the  threshold  of  the  cattle  house.4 
In  Northamptonshire  the  animal  was  burnt  for  '  good 
luck.' 5  In  Cornwall  a  calf  was  burnt  in  1800  to  arrest 
the  murrain.6  Dalyell  alludes  to  'a  recent  expedient 
in  the  neighbouring  kingdom,'  probably,  therefore,  the 
north  of  England,  where  a  person  having  lost  many  of 
his  herd,  burnt  a  living  calf  to  preserve  the  remainder.7 

We  pick  out  from,  these  customs  two  details,  namely, 

1  Forbes  Leslie,  Early  Race*  of  Scotland,  i.  115. 

3  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitions,  p.  186. 

1  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales,  1812,  xvii.  i.  36. 

4  Atkinson,  Forty  Tears  in  a  Moorland  Parish,  p.  62  ;  Guthriej 
Old  Scottish  Customs,  p.  97. 

*  Grimm,  Teut.  Myth.  p.  610. 

'  Hone,  Everyday  Book,  i.  431;  Henderson,  Folklore,  p.  149- 
Hunt's  Popular  Romances  of  West  of  England,  pp.  212-214. 

7  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstition*  of  Scotland,  p.  184.  Professor 
Rhys  tells  me  this  also  occurs  in  the  Isle  of  Man. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLOEE   139 

the  death  by  fire  and  the  casting  down  from  the  pre- 
cipice, and  note  that  they  are  forms  of  sacrifice  specially 
applicable  to  human  beings.  The  next  link  in  the  gene- 
alogy of  these  customs  is  supplied  by  the  earlier  exam- 
ples from  Scotland.  In  1643  John  Brughe  and  Neane 
Nikclerith  conjoined  their  mutual  skill  to  save  the  herd 
from  sickness,  and  they  buried  one  alive  '  and  maid  all 
the  rest  of  the  cattell  theireftir  to  go  over  that  place ' ;  l 
and  in  1629  the  proprietor  of  some  sheep  in  the  Isle  of 
Birsay  was  advised  '  to  take  aiie  beast  at  Alhallow  evin 
and  spriiikill  thrie  dropps  of  the  bluid  of  it  ben  by  the 
fyre.'2 

In  this  last  example  the  sacrifice  is  connected  unmis- 
takably with  the  house — the  domestic  hearth.  Accord- 
ingly the  next  stage  back  seems  to  me  to  be  the  sacrifice  of 
an  animal,  not  for  animal  sickness,  but  for  human  sickness. 
This  stage  is  actually  represented  in  Scottish  usage. 
The  records  of  Dingwall  on  August  6,  1678,  note  the 
proceedings  taken  against  four  of  the  Mackenzies  '  for 
sacrificing  a  bull  in  ane  heathenish  manner  in  the  Island 
of  St.  Ruffus,  commonly  called  Elian  Moury,  in  Lochew, 
for  the  recovery  of  the  health  of  Cirstane  Mackenzie.'  3 
Reference  to  the  same  ceremony  is  contained  in  the 
trial  of  Helene  Isbuster  in  1635,  where  it  is  stated  that 
Adam  Lennard  recovered  from  his  sickness  as  the  cows 
and  oxen  of  another  recovered.4  In  an  Irish  example 

1  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitions  of  Scotland,  p.  185. 
-  Ibid.  p.  184.  *  Proc.  Soc.  Antiq.  Scot.  iv.  258. 

1  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitiont,  p.  182. 


140  ETHNOLOGY  IN  "FOLKLORE 

the  interposition  of  a  saint-deity  does  not  hide  the 
primitive  practice.  An  image  of  wood  about  two  feet 
high,  carved  and  painted  like  a  woman,  was  kept  by  one  of 
the  family  of  O'Herlebys  in  Ballyvorney,  county  Cork,  and 
when  anyone  was  sick  of  the  small-pox  they  sent  for  it, 
sacrificed  a  sheep  to  it,  and  wrapped  the  skin  about  the 
sick  person,  and  the  family  ate  the  sheep.1 

The  stage  of  '  animal  for  animal '  is  therefore  pre- 
ceded by  the  stage  of  '  animal  for  human  being.'  The 
earliest  stage  of  all,  where  human  being  is  sacrificed  for 
human  being,  is,  if  I  mistake  not,  represented  in  the 
hideous  practice,  attested  by  Sir  Arthur  Mitchell,  of 
epileptic  patients  tasting  the  blood  of  a  murderer  to  be 
cured  of  their  disease.2  Here  once  more  the  murderer 
and  the  outcast  are  the  objects  of  particularly  revolting 
practices,  which  appear  to  have  been  transferred  to  them 
during  the  development  of  more  humane  notions  con- 
cerning one's  fellow-creatures.  But  the  final  stage  of 
the  genealogy  is  more  clearly  represented  than  even 
this.  Among  the  dismal  records  of  witchcraft  in 
Scotland  towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  there 
is  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  sacrifice  of  one  human 
being  for  another  in  cases  of  sickness.  On  July  22, 
1590,  Hector  Monro,  seventeenth  Baron  of  Fowlis,  was 
tried '  for  sorcery,  incantation,  witchcraft,  and  slaughter.' 
It  appears  that  in  1588,  being  sick,  he  sent  for  a  notorious 
witch,  who  informed  the  Baron  that  he  could  not  recover 

1  Richardson,   The  Great   Folly,  Superstition,  and  Idolatry  of 
Pilgrimages. 

'*  Past  in  the  Present,  p.  154. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   141 

unless  '  the  principal  man  of  his  bluid  should  die  for  him.' 
George  Monro,  the  Baron's  half-brother,  was  selected  as 
the  victim.  The  witch  and  her  accomplices  one  hour 
after  midnight  repaired  to  a  spot  near  high-water  mark 
where  there  was  a  boundary  between  lands  belonging  to 
the  king  and  the  bishop.  There,  having  first  carefully 
removed  the  turf,  they  dug  a  grave  long  enough  to  con- 
tain the  sick  man,  Hector  Monro.  Having  placed  him 
in  the  grave,  they  then  covered  him  with  the  green 
turf,  which  they  fastened  with  wands.  The  foster- 
mother  of  the  Baron  then  ran  the  breadth  of  nine  ridges, 
and  011  returning  to  the  grave  asked  the  witch  '  which 
was  her  choice.'  She  answered  that  '  Hector  should 
live  and  his  brother  George  die  for  him.'  This 
part  of  the  ceremony  being  three  times  repeated,  and 
from  the  commencement  to  the  end  of  these  rites  no 
other  words  having  been  spoken,  Hector  was  removed 
from  the  grave  and  conveyed  back  to  his  bed.  He 
recovered  from  his  illness  and  his  brother  died.1 

There  can  be  no  doubt  about  such  an  example  as 
this.  '  The  alleged  act  of  transferring  disease  or  pain 
from  one  person  to  another,'  says  Mr.  Forbes  Leslie, 
'  and  thus  relieving  the  original  sufferer,  is  one  of  the 
most  common  articles  of  accusation  in  the  trials  of 
witches.  .  .  .  That  the  transfer  of  maladies  was  only  a 
modification  of  the  tenet  of  sacrifice  of  one  life  being 
efficient  for  the  saving  of  another  appears  from  the 

1  Forbes  Leslie,  Early  Races  of  Scotland,  i.  79-82  ;  Pitcairn's 
Criminal  Trials,  i.  191-204. 


142         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

explanation  of  Catherine  Bigland,  who  was  tried  in  1615 
for  having  transferred  a  disease  from  herself  to  a  man. 
Having  heard  the  accusation,  she  exclaimed, '  If  William 
Bigland  lived,  she  would  die  ;  therefore  God  forbid  he 
live.' > 

The  genealogy  does  not  end  here,  for  the  practices 
of  the  Scottish  witches  exactly  carry  out  the  tenets  of 
the  Druids,  who  believed  that  the  life  of  one  man  could 
only  be  redeemed  by  that  of  another.  The  Scottish 
witch  did  not  get  her  creed  and  rites  from  the  writings 
of  Caesar  and  Pliny ;  she  got  them  by  descent  from 
Druid  practices  which  Csesar  and  Pliny  witnessed  or 
might  have  witnessed. 

In  any  society  where  human  sacrifice  was  practised 
for  the  cure  of  disease  it  may  be  surmised  that  not 
always  could  the  rite  be  accomplished,  and  especially  in 
cases  where  the  patient  was  not  rich  and  powerful. 
Probably  only  in  cases  of  great  chiefs  was  the  right  r** 
regularly  practised.  In  other  cases  disease  would  be 
transferred  from  the  patient  to  a  human  victim  in  a  less 
ostentatious  manner,  and  this  side  of  the  case  is  also 
represented  in  folklore. 

The  Orkney  Islanders  wash  a  sick  person  and  then 
throw  the  water  down  at  a  gateway,  in  the  charitable 
belief  that  the  sickness  will  leave  the  patient  and  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  first  person  who  passes  through  the  gate.2 

1  Forbes  Leslie,  op.  cit.  i.  83. 

2  Rogers,  Social   Life  in  Scotland,  iii.  226  ;  cf.  Dalyell.  Darker 
Superstitions,  p.  104. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   143 

Direct  transfer,  by  the  aid  of  warlocks  or  witches,  was 
practised  in  the  Highlands,  in  which  an  enchanted  yarn 
was  placed  over  the  door  where  the  victim  was  to  pass.1 
At  Inverkip,  near  Paisley,  in  1694,  nail-parings  and 
hairs  from  the  eye-lashes  and  crown  of  the  head  of  the 
patient,  also  a  small  coin,  were  sewn  up  in  a  piece  of 
cloth  and  so  placed  that  the  package  might  be  picked 
up  by  someone,  who  would  forthwith  have  the  malady 
transferred  to  him.2 

The  transfer  of  disease  to  animals  seems  to  be  the 
folklore  substitution  for  the  last  group  of  examples. 
In  the  Highlands  a  cat  was  washed  in  the  water  which 
had  served  for  the  ablution  of  the  invalid,  and  was  then 
set  free.3 

Finally  the  transference  of  disease  from  one  animal 
to  another  also  appears  in  this  group.  In  Caithness 
Daly  ell  records  a  case  of  transporting  a  portion  of  the 
diseased  animal  from  the  owner's  house  to  the  dwelling  of 
another,  whose  cattle  sickened  and  died,  while  those  of 
the  former  recovered.4 

Thus  the  sacrifice  of  a  human  being  for  the  cure  of 
disease  has  been  traced  down  through  all  stages  of  its 
survival.  It  is  a  good  example  of  what  I  have  termed 
'  substitution '  in  folklore,  and  is  remarkable  because  it  is^^ 
not  only  the  victim  for  whom  a  substitute  is  found,  but 
the  complete  rite,  originally  under  the  Druidic  cult 

1  Dalyeli,  op.  cit.  pp.  106,  107. 

2  Rogers,  Social  Life  in  Scotland,  iii.  317. 

8  Dalyeli,  Darker  Siqjerstitions,  pp.  104,  105,  108. 
4  Dalyeli,  op.  cit.  pp.  108,  109. 


144         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

appertaining  to  man,  and,  so  far  as  we  know  or  are  war- 
ranted in  conjecturing,  only  to  man,  is  found  in  folklore 
appertaining  to  animals.  Other  remedies  having  been 
discovered  for  the  cure  of  disease  among  men,  or  an  in- 
trusive race  of  people  having  introduced  other  remedies, 
the  older  cult  is  perpetuated  by  another  medium.  It  is 
oftener  the  case  than  is  generally  supposed  that  rites 
once  incidental  to  human  society  are  transferred  under 
new  influences  to  cattle  instead  of  being  entirely 
abolished,  and  if  this  characteristic  of  folklore  be  con- 
stantly kept  in  mind  while  examining  animal  folklore, 
better  results  will  be  arrived  at  than  by  interpreting 
it  by  all  sorts  of  mythic  fancy  out  of  keeping  with  the 
standards  of  primitive  culture. 

4.  Henderson  says  that  the  moss-troopers  of  the 
borders  made  the  saining  torch  for  a  funeral  from  the 
fat  of  a  slaughtered  enemy,  or  at  least  of  a  murdered 
man.1 

I  take  it  that  this  diabolical  practice  indicates  an 
attitude  towards  one's  enemies  which  at  once  suggests 
that  the  region  of  savagery  can  alone  explain  it.  In 
the  meantime  it  is  to  be  observed  that  but  for  this  record 
the  transitional  stage  from  '  enemy '  to  a  '  murdered 
man '  would  hardly  have  been  perceived,  and  I  note 
this  as  another  instance  where  the  attitude  of  the 
peasantry  to  the  murdered  and  their  slayers  often  repre- 
sents a  much  older  feeling  existing  among  members  of 

1  Folklore  of  Northeiii  Counties,  p.  54  ;  cf.  p.  239  of  the  same 
volume. 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLOEE        145 

a  clan  or  tribe  for  strangers  that  are  enemies.  Before 
trying  to  interpret  what  this  feeling  may  be,  I  will  see 
what  there  is  in  tradition  and  custom  in  extension  of 
the  fact  recorded  by  Henderson.  The  isolated  note, 
clear  as  it  is  as  the  record  of  a  practice  that  is  not 
civilised,  does  not  tell  much  of  its  history,  which  may, 
however,  be  recovered  by  noting  other  facts  connected 
with  the  treatment  of  enemies.  If  from  the  mere 
atrocities  of  warfare  there  may  be  traced  the  theory  of 
savage  life  which  underlies  certain  specific  acts,  we 
may,  by  means  of  this  theory,  trace  out  the  connec- 
tion between  the  border  custom  and  the  practices  of 
savages. 

Modern  times  supply  evidence  of  savage  practice 
towards  an  enemy  which  help  to  explain  the  place  in 
folklore  of  the  moss-troopers'  saining  torch.  In  the 
reign  of  James  VI.  of  Scotland  the  MacDonalds  killed 
the  chief  of  the  clan  Drummond  of  Drummondernoch 
and  cut  off  his  head ;  and  the  king's  proclamation 
describes  how  they  carried  the  head  to  '  the  Laird  of 
McGregor,  who,  and  his  haill  surname  of  McGregors  pur- 
posely conveined  at  the  kirk  of  Buchquhidder,  qr  they 
caused  ye  said  umqll  John's  head  be  pnted  to  them,  and 
yr  avowing  ye  sd  murder,  laid  yr  hands  upon  the  pow 
and  in  Ethnic  and  barbarous  manner  swear  to  defend 
ye  authors  of  ye  sd  murder.' '  That  this  swearing 
upon  the  skull  was  not  the  single  barbarous  act  of  a 
particular  clan  without  the  sanction  of  custom  is,  I 
1  N.  Sf  Q.  v.  547. 

L 


146  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 

think,  shown  by  the  superstition,  said  to  be  very  common 
in  Mayo,  Ireland,  of  swearing  upon  a  skull,  in  order  to 
get  which  persons  have  dug  up  a  corpse  recently  buried 
and  cut  off  its  head.1 

Many  barbarities  are  related  in  the  legendary  his- 
tories of  Irish  warriors.  There  seems  to  be  evidence  of 
an  habitual  savagery  in  the  following  details  which  goes 
far  to  explain  the  short  though  explicit  account  of  Border 
war  customs.  The  Irish  warrior  when  he  killed  his 
enemy  broke  his  skull,  extracted  his  brains,  mixed  up 
the  mass  well,  and  working  the  compound  into  a  ball  he 
carefully  dried  it  in  the  sun,  and  afterwards  produced 
it  as  a  trophy  of  former  valour  and  a  presage  of  future 
victory.  '  Take  out  its  brain  therefrom,'  was  Conall's 
speech  to  the  gillie  who  declared  he  could  not  carry 
Mesgegra's  head,  '  and  ply  a  sword  upon  it,  and  bear  the 
brain  with  thee,  and  mix  lime  therewith  and  make  a  ball 
thereof.'  These  trophies  are  described  as  being  the 
object  of  pride  and  contention  among  the  chiefs,  and 
Mesgegra's  brain,  being  captured  by  Get  from  Conall, 
was  hurled  at  Conchobar  and  caused  his  death.2 

Then  we  have  the  practice  recorded  of  cutting  off 
the  point  of  the  tongue  of  every  man  they  slew,  and 

1  jr.  #  Q.  v.  485. 

a  Otway,  Sketches  in  Erris  and  Tyrarcly,  p.  17 ;  O'Curry,  MS. 
Materials  for  Irish  Hist.  pp.  270,  275,  640  ;  Manners  and  Customs 
of  Ana.  Irish,  ii.  107,  290;  Rhys,  Celtic  Heathendom,  p.  136  ;  Rev. 
Celt.  viii.  63.  Mr.  Whitley  Stokes  says  the  heroes  of  this  story  '  are 
said  to  have  lived  in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era,  and  the 
possible  incidents  of  the  saga  are  such  as  may  well  have  taken  place 
at  that  period  of  heroic  barbarism.1 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   147 

bringing  it  in  their  pouch.1  Carrying  the  heads  of  the 
slain  at  their  girdle,  first  noted  both  by  Strabo  and 
Diodorus  Siculus,  is  clearly  implied  in  the  saga,  which 
Mr.  Whitley  Stokes  has  translated  from  a  twelfth-century 
copy,  called  the  '  Siege  of  Howth.' 2  An  episode  incorpo- 
rated in  the  story  of  Kulhwch  in  the  '  Mabinogion  '  dis- 
closes, says  Professor  Rhys,  '  a  vista  of  ancient  savagery  ' 
from  which  I  may  quote  the  passage  which  describes  how 
Gwyn  '  killed  Nwythou,  took  out  his  heart,  and  forced 
Kyledr  to  eat  his  father's  heart ;  it  was  therefore  Kyledr 
became  wild  and  left  the  abodes  of  men.' 3  Giraldus 
Cambrensis  mentions  that  in  Fitzstephen's  time  the 
Irish  foot-soldiers  collected  about  two  hundred  of  the 
enemies'  heads  and  laid  them  at  the  feet  of  Dermitius 
Prince  of  Leinster.  '  Among  them  was  the  head  of  one 
he  mortally  hated  above  all  the  rest,  and  taking  it  up 
by  the  ears  and  hair  he  tore  the  nostrils  and  lips  with 
his  teeth  in  a  most  savage  and  inhuman  manner.' 4 

Even  among  the  moss-troopers  themselves,  whose 
customs  we  are  trying  to  elucidate,  there  are  instances 
both  in  history  and  tradition  of  their  having  eaten  the 

1  Whitley  Stokes,  in  Revue  Celtique,  i.  261 ;  v.  232.  Cf.  William 
of  Newbury  for  the  story  of  a  Galloway  chieftain  who  took  captive 
a  cousin  of  Henry  II.,  plucked  out  his  eyes  '  et  testiculos  et  linguam 
absciderunt.' — G.  JVutriyensis,p.  281. 

•  Strabo,  iv.  302 ;  Diod.  Sic.  v.  29 ;  Rev.  Celt.  viii.  59.  Another 
story  cited  by  Rhys  (Celtic  Heathendom,  p.  513)  affords  the  same 
evidence.  It  is  possible  that  the  curious  instances  of  magic  skulls 
preserved  in  some  ancient  houses  in  England  may  be  derived  from 
these  savage  practices. 

8  Rhys,  Celtic  Heathendom,  p.  561. 

4  Conquest  of  Ireland,  lib.  i.  cap.  iv. 

L  2 


148         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOEE 

flesh  and  drank  the  blood  of  their  enemies,  and  a  cer- 
tain Lord  Soulis  was  boiled  alive,  the  perpetrators  of 
the  murder  afterwards  drinking  the  water.1 

There  is  at  least  one  passage  in  early  MS.  his- 
tories which  attributes  to  the  Irish  goddess  of  battles 
the  dedication  of  human  heads.  A  gloss  in  the  '  Lebor 
Buidhe  Lecain,'  says  Professor  Whitley  Stokes,  explains 
Machce  thus — f  the  scald  crow ;  or  she  is  the  third 
Morrigau  (great  queen)  ;  Macha's  fruit  crop,  i.e.  the 
heads  of  men  that  have  been  slaughtered.' 2  Taking 
this  in  connection  with  the  early  practices  of  the  Irish 
as  recorded  by  classical  authorities,  and  the  practices  so 
frequently  ascribed  to  Irish  heroes  in  legends  and  tradi- 
tions and  in  early  MS.  accounts,3  the  meaning  and  sig- 
nificance seems  clear  enough,  although  I  have  not  been 
able  to  discover  that  Irish  scholars  have  so  interpreted 
it.  The  story  of  Bran's  head  being  cut  off  by  the  seven 
survivors  of  his  army  and  taken  with  them  to  their  own 
country,  where  they  preserved  it  and  feasted  with  it,  is 
still  more  to  the  point  in  illustration  of  savage  custom 
rather  than  of  mythic  thought,4  while  the  stoiy  of 

1  Denkam  Tracts  (Folklore  Society)  i.  155. 

2  Rev.  Celt.  i.  36  ;  Stokes,  Three  Irish  Glossaries,  p.  xxxv.    In  the 
story  of  Echtra  Nerai  is  the  following  confirmatory  allusion  :  '  The 
dun  was  burnt  before  him,  and  he  beheld  a  heap  of  heads  of  their 
people  cut  off  by  the  warriors  from  the  dun.' — Rev.  Celt.  x.  217. 

•  Thus  Cuculain's  head  was  taken  by  Ere  MacCairpre  in  retaliation 
for  his  father's  head  (Rev.  Celt.  i.  p.  51 ;  iii.  182).  Conall  the  Victorious 
cut  off  Lugaid's  head  (Rev.  Celt.  iii.  184).  Cormac's  death  and 
decapitation  are  given  in  Whitley  Stokes'  Three  Irish  Glossaries^ 
p.  xi. 

4  Rhys,  op.  tit.  p.  96. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   149 

Lomna's  head  struck  off  and  stuck  upon  a  pike  while  his 
slayers  cooked  their  food  goes  still  further  in  the  same 
direction,  because  of  the  implied  custom  connected  with 
the  plot  of  the  story  of  placing  some  food  in  the  mouth 
of  the  dead  man's  head.1 

If,  then,  the  heads  of  the  slain  were  dedicated  to  the 
goddess  of  battle  they  would  be  placed  in  her  temple. 
With  this  preliminary  evidence  before  us  I  want  to  pass 
on  to  an  archaeological  fact  of  some  significance.  When 
Malcolm  II.  of  Scotland  defeated  the  Danes  he,  in  fulfil- 
ment of  a  vow,  built  the  church  of  St.  Mortlach  or  Moloch 
at  Keith,  and  built  into  the  walls  of  the  sacred  edifice 
the  heads  of  those  slain  in  the  battle.2  In  the  Isle  of 
Egg,  Martin  discovered  a  burial-place  filled  with  human 
bones ;  but  no  heads  were  found,  and  the  natives  supposed 
that  their  heads  were  cut  off  '  and  taken  away  by  the 
enemy.'3  So  in  the  interments  of  the  Long  Barrow 
period  headless  trunks  are  frequently  met  with,  as  are 
also  heads  buried  separately.4 

Simeon  of  Durham  relates  that  when  Duncan  King 
of  Scots  besieged  Durham  and  was  defeated,  the  be- 
sieged killed  all  his  foot-soldiers  and  cut  oft'  their  heads, 
piling  them  up  in  the  market-place.5 

Fortunately  some  of  the  practices  which  mark  the 
savagery  of  early  Britain  are  distinctive  and  clear. 
Beyond  the  general  features  which  perhaps  it  might  be 

1  Khys,  op.  tit.  p.  99 ;  Stokes,  Three  Irish  Glossaries,  p.  xlvii. 

2  Antiquary,  v  .  77.  3  Martin,  Western  Islands,  p.  278. 
4  Journ,  Anthrop.  Inst,  v.  146,  147.  !  Cap.  33. 


150         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

difficult  to  exactly  classify  in  the  development  of  culture 
are  certain  special  features  which  may  be  classified 
with  some  degree  of  certainty.  People  who  ate  their 
deceased  relatives,  collected  the  heads  and  drank  the 
blood  of  their  enemies,  tattooed  themselves  with  repre- 
sentations of  animals,  sacrificed  human  beings,  and 
indulged  in  orgiastic  rites  at  the  altars  of  fetichistic 
gods,  are  within  the  pale  of  ethnographic  research.  At 
once  we  seek  for  the  causes  of  these  wild  doings.  The 
people  who  acted  in  this  way  did  so  in  obedience  to 
some  theory  of  life  which  made  all  their  hideous  prac- 
tices good,  or  at  all  events  necessary,  in  their  eyes  and 
in  the  eyes  of  their  fellows  ;  and  if  we  would  know  more 
about  the  people  who  have  yielded  up  their  scraps  of  savage 
custom  to  the  modern  inquirer  we  must  ascertain  what 
their  theory  of  life  was.  This  will  not  be  found  in  the 
pages  of  Strabo  and  Caesar  and  Pliny,  or  the  other 
authorities  who  have  been  adduced  in  evidence  ;  but  it 
must  be  sought  for  in  the  history  of  modern  savagedom, 
where  practices  which  startled  and  horrified  the  early 
observers  still  exist,  and  in  the  hands  of  the  scientific 
analyst  yield  up  truths  concerning  human  life  which 
overshadow  feelings  of  horror.  Even  the  practices  per- 
formed during  the  maddening  events  of  war  and  revenge 
are  the  result  to  some  degree  of  a  primitive  theory  of  life 
which  necessitates  their  performance,  and  I  shall  there- 
fore endeavour  to  trace  out  from  modern  savagery  what 
it  was  that  taught  early  man  to  revel  in  the  acts  which 
have  just  been  described  from  the  evidence  of  folklore. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   151 

The  savage  treatment  of  enemies,  represented  by  the 
practices  of  head-hunting  and  of  drinking  their  blood 
and  besmearing  with  it  their  own  faces,  belong  to  that 
widespread  primitive  idea  that,  by  eating  the  flesh,  or 
some  particular  portion  of  the  body  which  is  recognised 
as  the  seat  of  power,  or  by  drinking  the  blood  of  another 
human  being,  a  man  absorbs  the  nature  or  the  life  of 
the  deceased  into  his  own. 

After  the  Italones  of  the  island  of  Lucon  have  killed 
an  enemy,  they  drink  his  blood  and  devour  the  lungs 
and  back  part  of  the  brain,  &c.,  believing  that  this 
horrible  mess  gives  them  spirit  and  courage  in  war.1 
The  Nukahivahs  cut  off  the  heads  of  their  slain  enemies 
and  drank  the  blood  and  ate  a  part  of  the  brain  011  the 
spot.2  Many  of  the  Maoris  quaffed  the  blood  of  the 
slain  as  the  essence  of  life  and  the  source  of  human 
activity,  and  they  generally  severed  the  head  from  the 
body  and  preserved  it  as  a  trophy.3  Gallego  mentions, 
in  1566,  that  a  body  of  five  white  men  and  five  negroes, 
having  landed  on  one  of  the  islands  of  the  Solomon 
group,  were  set  upon  by  the  native  Indians  and  mas- 
sacred, except  one  negro.  '  All  the  rest  they  hewed  to 
pieces,  cutting  off  their  heads,  arms,  and  legs,  tearing 
out  their  tongues  and  supping  up  their  brains  with  great 
ferocity.' 4  Among  the  Lhoosai  of  India  it  is  customary 
for  a  young  warrior  to  eat  a  piece  of  the  liver  of  the  first 

1  Featherman's  Social  History,  2nd  div.  501. 

2  Ibid.  Oceano-Melanesians,  p.  91.  3  Ibid.  204,  205. 
4  Guppy's  Solomon  Islands,  p.  225. 


152         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

man  he  kills,  which  it  is  said  strengthens  the  heart  and 
gives  courage.1  Among  the  natives  of  Victoria  there  is 
a  strong  belief  in  the  virtues  communicated  by  rubbing 
the  body  with  the  fat  of  a  dead  man,  it  being  thought  that 
his  strength  and  courage  will  be  acquired  by  those  who 
perform  the  ceremonies.2 

The  New  Ireland  cannibals  of  the  present  day  are 
fond  of  a  composition  of  sago,  cocoa-nut,  and  human 
brains.3  The  blood  revenge  of  the  Garos  of  India  is 
marked  by  a  practice  very  little  in  advance  of  this. 
Upon  a  quarrel  ensuing, '  both  parties  immediately  plant 
a  tree  bearing  a  sour  fruit,  and  make  a  solemn  vow  that 
they  will  avail  themselves  of  the  earliest  opportunity 
that  oifers  to  eat  its  fruit  with  the  juice  of  their  antago- 
nist's head.  The  party  who  eventually  succeeds  in 
revenging  himself  upon  his  antagonist  cuts  off  his  head, 
summons  his  friends,  with  whom  he  boils  the  head  along 
with  the  fruit  of  the  tree,  and  portions  out  the  mixed 
juice  to  them,  and  drinks  of  it  himself.  The  tree  is  then 
cut  down  and  the  feud  is  at  an  end.' 4 

Among  the  Ashantees,  one  of  the  Tshi-speaking 
peoples  of  Africa,  several  of  the  hearts  of  the  enemy  are 
cut  out  by  the  fetichmen  who  follow  the  army,  and  the 
blood  and  small  pieces  being  mixed  (with  much  ceremony 
and  incantation)  with  various  consecrated  herbs,  all 

1  Lewin's  Wild  Eaces  of  S.-E.  India,  p.  269. 

2  Smythe,   Aborigines  of  Victoria,  i.  xxix ;  for  cutting  off  the 
head  of  their  enemies,  see  ibid.  i.  161,  165. 

1  Bomilly,  Western  Pacific,  p.  58. 
4  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.  ii.  396. 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLOEE        153 

those  who  have  never  killed  an  enemy  before  eat  a  portion, 
for  it  is  believed  that  if  they  did  not  their  vigour  and 
courage  would  be  secretly  wasted  by  the  haunting  spirit 
of  the  deceased.  It  is  said  that  the  King  and  all  the 
dignitaries  partook  of  the  heart  of  any  celebrated  enemy, 
and  they  wore  the  smaller  joints,  bones,  and  teeth  of  the 
slain  monarchs.  Beecham  says  the  heart  was  eaten  by 
the  chiefs,  and  the  flesh  '  having  been  dried,  was  divided, 
together  with  his  bones,  among  the  men  of  consequence 
in  the  army,  who  kept  their  respective  shares  about 
their  persons  as  charms  to  inspire  them  with  courage.' ' 
The  preservation  of  the  heads  of  fallen  enemies  as 
house  trophies  is  found  among  many  of  the  tribes  already 
mentioned  for  other  evidence.  The  Battahs  of  Sumatra 
use  the  roof  space  of  the  village  house  for  preserving  the 
sacred  relics  of  the  community,  and  there  are  to  be 
found  the  skulls  of  enemies  slain  in  battle.2  The 
Montescos  and  Italones  keep  the  skulls  of  enemies  in 
their  houses  as  trophies  ; 3  so  did  the  Maories.4  The 
Solomon  islanders  set  up  a  pair  of  the  skulls  of  their 
enemies  upon  &  post  when  they  launch  their  canoe,  and 
the  canoe-houses  are  adorned  with  rows  of  them.5  Some 

1  Bowditch,  Mission  to  Ashantee,  p.  300 ;    Ellis,  Tslii-speaking 
Peoples,  p.  266  ;    Beecham's  Ashantee,  p.  76.     '  The  hearts  [of  the 
messengers]  were  reported  to  have  been  devoured  by  the  Braffoes 
while  yet  palpitating.' — Ibid.  p.  11. 

2  Featherman,  Malay  o-Melanesians,  pp.  318,  335. 

3  Ibid.  p.  502  ;  Morga,  Philippine   Islands,  16th  cent.  Hakluyt, 
p.  272.  4  Featherman,  Oceano-Melanesians,  p.  204. 

5  Woodford,  Naturalist  among  the  Head  Hunters,  pp.  92,  152  : 
Guppy,  Solomon  Islands,  p.  16. 


154  ETHNOLOGY   IN    FOLKLORE 

of  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  India  follow  this  practice. 
Thus  the  Lhoosai,  or  Kookies,  carry  away  the  heads  of 
the  slain  in  leather  sacks,  and  are  careful,  if  possible,  to 
keep  their  hands  unwashed  and  bloody,  and  as  soon  as 
the  conquerors  reach  their  village  they  assemble  before 
the  chief  s  house  and  make  a  pyramid  of  the  heads  they 
have  taken ;  the  principal  men  of  the  tribe  fix  their 
enemies'  heads  on  bamboo  poles,  which  they  place  on 
the  tombs  of  their  ancestors.1  What  strikes  the  stranger 
most,  says  an  eyewitness,  on  entering  a  chiefs  resi- 
dence among  the  Naga  hill-tribes  is  the  collection  of 
skulls,  both  human  and  of  the  field,  slung  round  the 
walls  inside  ;  here  repose  heads  of  chieftains  slain  in 
battle,  or  perhaps  treacherously  killed  for  some  wrong, 
real  or  imaginary,  done  to  their  successful  enemy.2  The 
Samoans  '  were  ambitious  to  signalise  themselves  by 
the  number  of  heads  they  could  lay  before  the  chiefs.' 
These  heads  were  piled  up  in  a  heap  in  the  malae  or 
public  assembly,  the  head  of  the  most  important  chief 
being  put  at  the  top.3  The  Tshi-speaking  tribes  of  Africa 
collect  the  jawbones  of  their  slain  enemies,  and  preserve 
them  by  being  dried  and  smoked,  the  heads  of  any  hostile 

1  Lewin's  Wild  Races  of  S.-E.  India,  pp.  266,  279  ;  Asiatic  Re- 
searches, vii.  188  ;    Woodthorpe,   Lushai  Expedition,^.   136:   'The 
Lushai  have  a  superstition  that  if  the  head  of  a  man  slain  in  battle 
falls  into  the  hands  of  his  enemy,  the  man  becomes  the  slave  of  the 
victor  in  the  next  world.'    Journ.  Ind.  Arch.  ii.  233. 

2  Owen's  Naga  Tribes  (Calcutta,  1844),  p.   12;   Hunter,   Stat. 
Account  of  Assam,  ii.  384 ;  Journ.  Anthrop.  lust.  iii.  477 ;  Journ. 
Ind.  Arch.  ii.  233. 

*  Turner's  Samoa,  p.  193  ;  Wilkes,  United  States  Explor.  Exped. 
ii.  139. 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLORE        155 

chiefs  who  may  have  fallen  being  preserved  entire,  and 
carried  separately  as  trophies  of  victory.1 

From  this  view  of  savage  practices  towards  enemies 
it  is  clear  that  something  more  than  mere  cruelty  is 
contained  in  them,  and  perhaps  we  may  now  venture 
upon  an  explanation  of  the  saining  torch,  made  from  the 
fat  of  a  slaughtered  enemy,  with  a  description  of  which 
this  section  began.  Among  savages  the  fat  of  an 
enemy  is  of  value  to  the  living.  A  very  slight  exten- 
sion of  this  idea  shows  that  it  may  be  of  service  to  the 
dead.  It  appears  that  the  saining  candle  must  be  kept 
burning  throughout  the  night,  and  it  seems  that  the 
reason  for  this  may  well  be  in  order  to  aid  the  soul  of 
the  dead  by  means  of  a  light  to  its  last  resting-place  in 
ghost  land.  In  the  candle  which  is  thus  used,  made  of 
the  fat  of  a  slaughtered  enemy  who  has  already  had  to 
travel  the  same  course,  may  be  traced  that  curious  idea 
embodied  in  the  Australian  belief  that  the  strength  of 
a  slain  enemy  enters  into  his  slayer  when  he  rubs  him- 
self with  the  fat.  In  the  English  border  custom  the 
strength  of  the  dead  enemy  is  used  to  light  the  depart- 
ing soul  of  the  slayer  to  its  rest,  and  the  light  from  an 
enemy's  strength  already  in  ghost  land  would  be  a 
surer  guide  than  any  other  light.  Such  is  the  explana- 
tion which  the  savage  evidence  seems  to  me  to  yield 
concerning  the  folklore  evidence,  and  the  genealogy  of 
this  item  of  folklore  is  very  short,  there  being  but 

1  Ellis,  Tshi-sneaking  Peoples,  pp.  266,  267  ;  Beecham,  Ashantee, 
pp.  81,  211. 


156  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

one  link  between  it  and  savagery.  The  question  is — Is 
it  Aryan  or  non- Aryan  ? 

We  can  only  answer  this  by  endeavouring  to 
find  out  whether  the  primitive  Aryan  possessed  that 
hideous  belief  which  taught  the  warrior  to  consume  or 
keep  as  trophies  portions  of  his  enemy's  dead  body 
because  they  would  make  him  possessed  of  his  enemy's 
good  qualities,  or  because  they  effectually  secured  him 
from  injury  by  the  spirit  of  his  dead  enemy.  The 
science  of  language  is  silent  on  the  point,  though  the 
refined  custom  of  guest-friendship  revealed  to  us  by 
language l  points  to  some  higher  conceptions.  Com- 
parative custom,  too,  seems  to  suggest  that  the  trophy 
of  the  savage,  afraid  of  his  dead  enemy's  spirit,  had 
become  in  the  higher  development  of  culture  the  trophy 
of  the  gallant  warrior  who  exhibited  it  simply  as  proof 
of  his  own  valour,2  and  comparative  belief  yields  the 
singularly  expressive  example  recorded  by  Grimm  that 
'  a  dying  man's  heart  could  pass  into  a  living  man, 
who  would  then  show  twice  as  much  pluck.' 3 

With  these  preliminary  suggestions  in  hand  let  us 
turn  to  folklore.  The  traditions  of  the  Indian  Aryans 
preserve  a  recollection  of  a  hostile  class  of  beings,  who 
go  about  open-mouthed  and  sniffing  after  human  flesh, 

1  Schrader,  op  tit.  p.  351. 

2  Spencer,  Ceremonial  Institutions,  pp  36-49  ;  the  shields  embel- 
lished with  emblematic  designs  expressive  of  the  exploits  of  their 
owners  adorned  the  walls  of  the   Scandinavian  houses. — Mallet, 
Northern  Antiq.  i.  241. 

1  Grimm,  Tevt.  Myth.  iv.  1548. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   157 

and  who  cany  off  their  human  prey  and  tear  open  the 
living  bodies,  and  with  their  faces  plunged  among  the 
entrails  suck  up  the  warm  blood  as  it  gushes  from  the 
heart.1  The  traditions  of  the  Celtic  Aryans  are  much 
the  same.  A  hostile  race  of  giants,  having  their  sense 
of  smell  for  human  flesh  peculiarly  sharp,  ate  their 
captives  and  revelled  in  their  blood.  The  '  Fee-fo-fum ' 
of  Cornwall  is  '  Fiaw-fiaw-foaghrich '  in  Argyll,  and 
these  sounds,  says  Mr.  Campbell,  may  possibly  be 
corruptions  of  the  language  of  real  big  burly  savages 
now  magnified  into  giants.2 

Unfortunately  the  mythologists  have  appropriated 
the  parallel  tradition  of  India.  They  interpret  it  as 
a  storm -myth  of  the  primitive  Aryans.  But  mytholo- 
gists have  to  deal  with  the  analysis  of  the  giant  world 
by  Mr.  J.  F.  Campbell,  to  take  count  of  the  facts  that 
the  giants  were  not  so  big  but  that  their  conquerors 
wore  their  clothes,  not  so  strong  that  men  could  not  beat 
them  even  by  wrestling,  and  that  their  magic  arts  were 
always  in  the  end  beaten  by  men ;  and  to  contest  the 
sound  conclusion  from  these  facts,  that  the  '  giants  are 
simply  the  nearest  savage  race  at  war  with  the  race 
who  tell  the  tales.' 3  The  nearest  savage  races  in  India 
are  those  hill-tribes  who,  like  the  Lhoosai,  teach 
their  young  warriors  to  eat  a  piece  of  the  liver  of  the 
first  man  they  kill  in  order  to  strengthen  their  hearts, 

1  Monier   Williams,   Indian    Wisdom,  pp.   312-313 ;    Temple's 
Wide-awake  Stories,  p.  395. 
-  Highland  Tales,  i.  xcviii. 
3  Campbell's  Tales  of  West  Highlands,  i.  xcix. 


158         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

and  to  carry  away  the  heads  of  the  slain,  being  careful 
to  keep  their  hands  unwashed  and  bloody ;  the  Nagas, 
who  adorn  their  houses  with  the  heads  of  their  enemies  ; 
or  the  Garos,  who  plant  a  tree  and  avail  themselves  of 
the  earliest  opportunity  that  offers  to  eat  its  fruit  with 
the  juice  of  their  antagonist's  head.1  The  nearest 
savage  races  in  Celtic  Britain  would  have  been  those 
tribes  of  Ireland  who,  as  Solinus  informs  us,  drank  the 
blood  of  their  fallen  enemies  and  then  smeared  their 
faces  therewith,  and  those  tribes  of  Britain  who,  on  the 
authority  of  Strabo  and  Diodorus  Siculus,  took  their 
enemies'  heads,  and,  slinging  them  at  their  saddle-bow, 
carried  them  home  and  nailed  them  to  the  porch  of  their 
houses 2 — non- Aryans,  in  point  of  fact,  as  they  are  in 
India,  who  have  left  a  remnant  of  their  practices  among 
the  Borderers  of  England  and  Scotland. 

5.  In  Yorkshire  the  country  people  call  the  night- 
flying  white  moths  '  souls.' 3  If  we  ask  whether  this  is 
merely  a  pretty  poetical  fancy,  the  further  question 
must  be  pat  whether  such  poetry  is  not  founded  upon 
undying  traditional  beliefs,  which  have  a  genealogy 
of  ethnical  value.  Grimm,  at  all  events,  supports  such 
a'  view  from  an  examination  of  kindred  Teutonic  beliefs,4 
and  when  put  to  the  test  I  think  the  root  of  the  conception 
in  English  folklore  may  be  traced  back  to  its  home. 

1  It  is  not  uninteresting  to  note  that  the  planting  of  a  tree 
when  the  hero  starts  on  his  righting  expeditions,  is  an  incident  in 
folk  tales  which  bears  very  curiously  on  the  Garo  custom. 

z  Strabo,  iv.  302  ;  Diod.  Sic.  v.  29. 

3  Choice  Notes,  Folklore,  p.  61.  4  Teut.  Myth.  ii.  826. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   159 

Between  the  butterfly  and  the  moth  there  is.  perhaps, 
not  much  to  distinguish  from  the  point  of  view  of 
poetical  fancy.  In  the  parish  of  Ballymoyer  in  Ireland 
butterflies  '  are  said  to  be  the  souls  of  your  grandfather.'  l 
But  poetical  fancy  dies  away  as  we  find  out  that  the 
same  conception  is  found  in  different  places  attached  to 
birds  and  to  animals.  An  example  occurs  in  London,  in 
which  a  sparrow  was  believed  to  be  the  soul  of  a  de- 
ceased person.2  In  county  Mayo  it  is  believed  that  the 
souls  of  virgins  remarkable  for  the  purity  of  their  lives 
were  after  death  enshrined  in  the  form  of  swans.3  In 
Devonshire  there  is  the  wejl-known  case  of  the  Oxenham 
family,  whose  souls  at  death  are  supposed  to  enter  into 
a  bird ; 4  while  in  Cornwall  it  is  believed  that  King 
Arthur  is  still  living  in  the  form  of  a  raven.5  In 
Nidderdale  the  country  people  say  that  the  souls  of  im- 
baptised  infants  are  embodied  in  the  nightjar.6 

The  most  conspicuous  example  of  souls  taking  the 
form  of  animals  is  that  of  the  Cornish  fisherfolk,  who 
believe  that  they  can  sometimes  see  their  drowning 
comrades  take  that  shape.7  In  the  Hebrides,  when  a 

1  Masons,  Stat.  Ace.  of  Ireland,  ii.  83 ;  Hall's  Ireland,  i.  394; 
N.  4-  Q.  5th  ser.  vii.,  284. 

2  Kelly,  Curiosities  of  Indo-European  Folklore,  pp.  104,  105. 

3  Swainson,  Folklore  of  Birds,  p.  152.     In  Irish  mythic  belief  the 
souls  of  the  righteous  were  supposed  to  appear  as  doves.— Rev.  Celt 
ii.  200. 

4  Howell's  Familiar  Epistles,  July  3,  1632;  Chambers,  Book  of 
Days,  ii.  731 ;  Gent.  Mag.,  1862,  i.  481-483. 

*  Notes  and  Queries,  1st  ser.,  viii.  618. 

8  Swainson,  ojj.  cit.  p.  98.  '  Folklore  Journal,  v.  189. 


160         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 

man  is  slowly  lingering  away  in  consumption,  the  fairies 
are  said  to  be  on  the  watch  to  steal  his  soul  that  they 
may  therewith  give  life  to  some  other  body.1  In 
Lancashire  some  one  received  into  his  mouth  the  last 
breath  of  a  dying  person,  fancying  that  the  soul  passed 
out  with  it  into  his  own  body.2 

These  examples,  I  believe,  represent  the  last  link  in 
the  genealogy  of  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  as  it 
has  survived  in  folklore.  Poetry  may  have  kept  alive  the 
idea  of  the  butterfly  or  moth  embodying  the  soul,  but 
it  did  not  create  the  idea,  because  it  is  shown  to  extend 
to  other  creatures  not  so  adaptable  to  poetic  fancy. 
When  we  come  upon  the  Lincolnshire  belief  that  '  the 
soul  of  a  sleeping  comrade  had  temporarily  taken  up 
his  abode  in  a  bee,'  3  we  are  too  near  the  doctrine  of 
savages  for  there  to  be  any  doubt  as  to  where  the  first 
links  of  the  genealogy  start  from.  There  is  scarcely 
any  need  to  draw  attention  to  its  non-Christian  character, 
except  that  folklore  has  preserved  in  the  Nidderdale 
example  evidence  of  the  arresting  hand  which  Christ- 
ianity put  upon  these  beliefs.  There  is,  however,  some- 
thing older  than  Christianity  as  an  arresting  power,  and 
I  go  back  to  the  Hebridean  example  to  prove  that  it 
was  at  the  instance  of  inimical  fairies  that  the  souls 
were  made  to  transmigrate  into  other  bodies.  Miss 
Gordon  Gumming,  who  records  this  belief,  describes  a 

1  Gordon  Cumming,  Hebrides,  p.  267. 

2  Harland  and  Wilkinson,  Lane.  Folklore,  p.  8. 
1  N.  4'  Q.  ii.  506 ;  iii.  206. 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLORE        161 

significant  ceremony  for  preventing  the  fairies  from  ac- 
complishing their  theft.  The  old  wives,  she  says,  '  cut 
the  nails  of  the  sufferer  that  they  may  tie  up  the  parings 
in  a  bit  of  rag,  and  wave  this  precious  charm  thrice 
round  his  head  deisul.'  Here  we  have  an  undoubted 
offering  of  a  part  of  the  body  in  place  of  the  whole  which 
is  so  frequently  met  with  in  primitive  worship,1  and  if 
my  interpretation  of  fairy  beliefs  is  correct,  it  is  an 
offering  to  non- Aryan  spirits.  In  this  connection  it  is 
important  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  transmigration  of 
the  soul  into  another  body  is  held  by  the  Hebrideans  to 
be  the  work  of  hostile  powers,  and  in  this  as  in  other 
branches  of  the  fairy  cult  I  believe  we  have  in  folklore 
the  lingering  traditions  of  the  influence  of  non-Aryan 
people  upon  their  Aryan  conquerors. 

These  conclusions,  drawn  from  the  facts  as  they  stand 
in  the  genealogy  of  this  group  of  folklore,  are  confirmed 
by  the  conclusions  arrived  at  by  the  science  of  culture 
with  reference  to  metempsychosis.  This  is  held  to 
belong  to  that  '  lower  psychology '  which  draws  no 
definite  line  between  souls  of  men  and  of  beasts,  and 
which  is  illustrated  only  by  examples  obtained  from 
savage  races.2  In  its  crude  state  it  was,  according  to 
Dr.  Tylor. '  seemingly  not  received  by  the  early  Aryans.' 3 
It  is  no  part  of  the  creed  of  the  European  Aryans,  and 
when  it  is  found  in  the  higher  levels  of  culture  the 

1  Cf.  Robertson  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  lect.  ix. ;  Frazer, 
Golden  Bough,  i.  198,  et  seq. 

'*  Dr.  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  6,  7,  has  collected  these  together. 
3  Tylor,.  loc.  cit. ;  and  see  Monier  Williams,  Indian  Wisdom,  p.  68. 

H 


162         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

theory  of  re- embodiment  of  the  soul  '  appears  in  strong 
and  varied  development.'  All  later  research  by  Gruppe 
and  other  authorities  does  not  appear  to  shake  this  opinion 
by  denying  to  the  Aryans  a  belief  in  the  future  existence 
of  the  soul.  It  confirms  the  hypothesis  that  I  advance — 
namely,  that  in  the  evidence  of  metempsychosis  derived 
from  its  survivals  in  folklore  there  is  no  development 
beyond  savagery ;  there  is  no  mark  of  it  ever  having 
been  adopted  and  adapted  by  a  people  higher  than 
savages  ;  and  that  therefore  its  state  of  arrested  develop- 
ment must  have  been  produced  by  the  incoming  Aryans. 
6.  The  examples  of  folklore  whose  ethnic  genealogy 
I  have  hitherto  attempted  to  trace  all  bear  upon  the 
relationship  of  man  to  man,  and  it  is  worth  stating  that 
a  full  consideration  of  the  whole  group  and  its  allied 
items  would  throw  much  additional  light  upon  the 
question  of  their  non-Aryan  origin.  It  is  important, 
however,  that  I  should  now  give  some  examples  of  folk- 
lore illustrative  of  the  relationship  of  man  to  other 
objects.  In  the  selection  of  specimens  it  is  difficult 
altogether  to  escape  classifying  them  into  the  sections 
which  are  supplied  from  a  study  of  the  ways  and  method 
of  thought  of  primitive  man,  but  this  cannot  properly 
be  accomplished  until  the  biography  of  each  item  of 
folklore  is  worked  out,  just  as  the  biography  of  words  is 
being  worked  out.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  can  we  count 
up  not  only  what  elements  of  primitive  fancy  and  thought 
are  represented  in  modern  folklore,  but  what  elements 
are  not  represented.  And  then  only  can  we  attempt 


THE   ETHNIC    GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLORE        163 

to  account  for  the  lacunas,  and  see  whether  the  stream 
of  Aryan  civilisation  has  filled   them  up. 

In  Ireland,  '  on  the  last  night  of  the  year  a  cake  is 
thrown  against  the  outside  door  of  each  house  by  the 
head  of  the  family  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  out 
hunger  during  the  ensuing  year.' !  The  significant  points 
to  note  about  this  custom  are  the  position  of  the  head  of 
the  family  as  the  priest  for  the  occasion,  and  the  outside 
door  of  the  house  as  the  place  of  the  ceremony.  The 
other  two  elements — namely,  the  use  of  a  cake  and  the 
purpose  of  the  ceremony  to  keep  out  hunger — are  the  sub- 
stitutions for  some  older  elements  which  have  arisen  by 
decay.  The  next  link  in  the  genealogy  is  also  supplied 
from  Irish  folklore.  At  St.  Peter's,  Athlone,  every  family 
of  a  village  on  St.  Martin's  Day  kills  an  animal  of  some 
kind  or  other  ;  those  who  are  rich  kill  a  cow  or  sheep, 
others  a  goose  or  turkey,  while  those  who  are  poor  kill 
a  hen  or  cock ;  with  the  blood  of  the  animal  they 
sprinkle  the  threshold  and  also  the  four  corners  of  the 
house,  and  '  this  performance  is  done  to  exclude  every 
kind  of  evil  spirit  from  the  dwelling  where  the  sacrifice 
is  made  till  the  return  of  the  same  day  the  following 
year.' 2 

Undoubtedly  we  are  here  taken  back  by  the   aid  of 
but  two   links  to   that   primitive   ceremonial    for   the 

1  Croker's  Researches  in  South  of  Ireland,  p.  233. 

-  Mason's  Statistical  Account  of  Ireland,  iii.  75.  '  Some  animal 
must  be  killed  on  St.  Martin's  day  because  blood  must  be  shed  '  is 
the  general  formula  of  Irish  folklore. — Folklore  Record,  iv.  107 
Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitions,  p.  191. 


164         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 

expulsion  of  evils  which  forms  a  part  of  Mr.  Frazer's 
examination  into  early  ritual.  Almost  all  the  examples 
— all  the  really  perfect  examples — he  adduces  are  of 
savage  origin,  and  '  the  frame  of  mind  which  prompts 
such  wholesale  clearance  of  evils '  is  also  only  capable 
of  illustration  from  savagery.  Mr.  Im  Thurn  supplies 
from  Guiana  the  needful  evidence.1  But  the  closest 
parallel  to  the  Irish  example  is  to  be  found  among  the 
ancient  Peruvians.  There  is  no  need  to  describe  the 
curious  ceremonies  at  any  length.  For  my  purpose  the 
most  significant  part  of  the  ceremony  is  the  prepara- 
tion of  a  coarse  paste  of  maize  and  the  use  to  which  it 
was  put.  Some  of  the  paste  was  kneaded  with  the  blood 
of  children  between  five  and  ten  years  of  age,  the  blood 
being  obtained  from  between  the  eyebrows.  Each 
family  assembled  at  the  house  of  the  eldest  brother 
to  celebrate  the  feast.  After  rubbing  their  head,  face, 
breast,  shoulders,  arms  and  legs  with  a  little  of  the 
blood-kneaded  paste,  the  head  of  the  family  anointed 
the  threshold  with  the  same  paste,  and  left  it  there  as 
a  token  that  the  inmates  of  the  house  had  performed 
their  ablutions.2 

It  is  not  possible  to  connect  this  kind  of  ritual  with 
any  known  Aryan  custom,  and  its  dependence  upon  the 
primitive  doctrine  of  the  swarming  of  the  whole  world 
with  spiritual  beings  hurtful  to  man,  and  the  resulting 

1  Quoted  by  Frazer,  Golden  Bovgh,  ii.  157,  et  seq. 

2  Hakluyt,  Ritex  and  Laws  of  tJie  Yncas,  p.  24  :  Frazer.   (j<iltli-ii 
Bottgh,  ii.  1G7,  168. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE   165 

doctrine  of  fear  as  the  guide  of  religious  life,  absolutely 
forbids  such  a  connection. 

7.  It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  sacred  stones 
have  a  definite  place  in  the  non-Aryan  religions  of  the 
world,  but  very  little  has  been  done  to  classify  the  sacred 
stones  of  European  peoples  according  to  the  beliefs  still 
surviving  as  folklore.1  I  shall  now  attempt  to  trace  out 
the  genealogy  of  this  important  group  of  folklore  in 
Britain.  We  must  consider,  first,  those  cases  where 
stones  are  supposed  to  be  possessed  of  some  magic 
powers,  the  exercise  of  which  is  not  accompanied  by 
any  special  ceremony  ;  secondly,  those  cases  where  the 
ritual  observed  to  put  these  powers  into  operation  is  of 
such  a  character  as  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the  worship 
paid  to  these  stone  divinities. 

On  the  altar  of  the  church  called  Kil-chattan,  on 
the  Isle  of  Gigha,  is  a  '  font  of  stone  which  is  very  large 
and  hath  a  small  hole  in  the  middle  which  goes  quite 
through  it.'2  A  black  stone  was  formerly  preserved  in 
the  cathedral  of  lona,  and  it  was  held  in  such  reverence 
that  on  it  solemn  oaths  were  sworn  and  agreements 
ratified.  A  similar  stone  in  the  Hebrides  was  supposed 
to  be  oracular  and  to  answer  whatever  questions  might 
be  asked.  It  lay  on  the  sea-shore,  and  the  people  never 
approached  it  without  certain  solemnities.  On  the  altar 

1  Miss  Gordon  Gumming  suggests  very  forcibly  that  the  3fiO  stone 
crosses  of  lona  are  probably  the  descendants  of  prehistoric  mono- 
liths similar  to  those  in  use  by  the  non-Aryans  of  India. — In  the 
Hebrides,  pp.  65-67. 

'*  Martin,  p.  228. 


166         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

of  St.  Fladda's  Chapel,  in  the  Island  of  Fladdahnan,  lies 
a  round  bluish  stone  which  was  always  moist ;  should 
fishermen  be  detained  here  by  contrary  winds  they  first 
walked  sunwise  round  the  chapel,  then  poured  water 
on  this  stone,  and  a  favourable  breeze  would  certainly 
spring  up ;  the  stone  likewise  cured  diseases,  and  the 
people  swore  solemn  oaths  by  it.  A  similar  stone  was 
in  the  Isle  of  Arran,  of  a  green  colour  and  the  size  of  a 
goose's  egg ;  it  was  known  as  the  stone  of  St.  Molingus 
and  was  kept  in  the  custody  of  the  Clan  Chattan;  the 
popular  belief  was  not  only  that  it  cured  disease,  but 
that  if  it  were  thrown  at  an  advancing  foe  they  would 
be  terror-stricken  and  retreat,  and  it  was  also  a  solemn 
thing  to  swear  by.  It  was  in  the  custody  of  a  woman, 
and  was  preserved  '  wrapped  up  in  fair  linen  cloth,  and 
about  that  there  is  a  piece  of  woollen  cloth.'  ' 

In  the  Island  of  North  Ronaldsay  there  is  a  large 
stone  about  nine  or  ten  feet  high  and  four  broad,  placed 
upright  in  a  plain,  but  no  tradition  is  preserved  con- 
cerning it.  On  New  Year's  Day  the  inhabitants 
assembled  there  and  danced  by  the  moonlight  with  no 
other  music  than  their  own  singing.2  In  Benbecula, 
'  the  vulgar  retain  the  custom  of  making  a  religious 
tour  round '  several  big  kairnes  of  stones  on  the  east 
side  of  the  island  on  Sundays  and  holidays.3  The  same 


1  Gordon  Camming,  op.  tit.  pp.  70, 167  ;  Martin's  Western  Islands, 
pp.  166,  226. 

-  Sinclair's  Stat.  Ace.  of  Scotland,  vii.  489. 
'  Martin,   \\~estt-rn  Island*,  p.  85. 


THE  ETHNIC   GENEALOGY  OF  FOLKLORE        167 

is  recorded  of  the  islands  of  Kismul,  Skye,  Jura,  and 

Egg-1 

Several  important  facts  need  to  be  tabulated  at  this 
stage  of  the  genealogy.  They  are — 

(1)  The  pouring  of  water  on  the  stone  to  produce  a 
favourable  breeze ; 

(2)  The  wrapping  up  of  the  stone  in  cloth ; 

(3)  The  custody  of  the  stone  by  a  special  clan ; 

all  of  which  indicate  features  of  a  special  cult,  over  and 
above  that  which  may  be  gathered  from  the  acts  of  reve- 
rence and  processions,  which  occur  more  generally.  In 
the  case  of  well  worship,  it  will  be  remembered  that  the 
obtaining  of  favourable  winds  was  one  of  the  inter- 
mediary forms  between  the  more  general  acts  of  re- 
verence and  worship  and  the  identification  of  the  well 
as  the  dwelling-place  of  the  rain-god.  In  like  manner 
with  stones  the  same  links  in  the  genealogy  are  dis- 
coverable. 

Thus  in  Scotland,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  a 
tempest  was  raised  by  dipping  a  rag  in  water  and 
then  beating  it  on  a  stone  thrice  in  the  name  of  Satan. 

I  knok  this  rag  wpone  this  stane 

To  raise  the  wind  in  the  divellis  name 

It  sail  not  lye  till  I  please  againe. 

• 

Drying  the  rag,  along  with  another  conjuration,  appeased 
the  storm.2  In  the  isle  of  Uist  the  inhabitants  erected 
the  '  water-cross,'  a  stone  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  opposite 

1  Martin,  op.  cit.  pp.  97,  152,  241,  277. 

-  Dalyell,  Darker  Superstitions  of  Scotland,  p.  248. 


168  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

to  St.  Mary's  church,  for  procuring  rain,  and  when 
enough  had  fallen  they  replaced  it  flat  on  the  ground.1 

These  examples  carry  on  the  identification  of  stones 
as  representatives  of  the  rain-god,  and  the  rag  ceremonial 
mentioned  by  Dalyell  may  without  much  difficulty  be 
considered  as  the  representative  of  the  wrappage  in  the 
A  trail  example.  But  by  far  the  most  significant  of  these 
beliefs  is  to  be  found  in  an  island  off  the  coast  of  Ireland, 
and  I  shall  describe  this  in  full,  as  it  has  been  put  on 
record  by  an  eyewitness,  though  perhaps  not  a  too 
favourable  one. 

About  seven  miles  distant  from  Bingham  Castle,  in 
the  Atlantic,  is  the  island  of  Inniskea,  containing  about 
300  inhabitants.  They  have  very  little  intercourse  with 
the  mainland.  A  stone  carefully  wrapped  up  in  flannel 
is  brought  out  at  certain  periods  to  be  adored  by  the 
inhabitants.  When  a  storm  arises  this  god  is  supplicated 
to  send  a  wreck  upon  their  coast.  The  stone  is  in  the 
south  island,  in  the  house  of  a  man  named  Monigan,  and 
is  called  in  the  Irish  Neevougi.  In  appearance  it 
resembles  a  thick  roll  of  homespun  flannel,  which  arises 
from  the  custom  of  dedicating  a  dress  of  that  material  to 
it  whenever  its  aid  is  sought.  This  is  sewed  on  by  an 

1  Martin's  Western  Islands,  p.  59.  I  am  tempted  to  sug- 
gest that  the  odd  custom,  recorded  by  lioberts  in  Old  English 
Customs  and  Chanties,  p.  100,  of  washing  a  stone  figure  known  as 
'  Molly  Grime '  in  Glentham  church  with  water  from  Newell  well, 
belongs  to  this  group  of  customs,  especially  as  it  has  its  parallel  in 
the  washing  of  the  wooden  figure  of  St.  Fumac  with  water  from  the 
>acred  well  at  Botriphnie  near  Keith. — Proc.  S»r.  Ant-iq.  S<-nt.  xvii. 
191. 


THE   ETHNIC   GENEALOGY   OF   FOLKLORE        169 

old  woman,  its  priestess,  whose  peculiar  care  it  is.  Its 
power  is  believed  to  be  immense.  They  pray  to  it  in 
time  of  sickness,  it  is  invoked  when  a  storm  is  desired 
to  dash  some  hapless  ship  upon  their  coast,  and  again 
the  exercise  of  its  power  is  solicited  in  calming  the 
angry  waves  to  admit  of  fishing  or  visiting  the  main- 
land. 

The  inhabitants  all  speak  the  Irish  language,  and 
among  them  is  a  trace  of  that  government  by  chiefs  which 
in  former  times  existed  in  Ireland.  The  present  chief  or 
king  of  Inniskea  is  an  intelligent  peasant  named  Cain. 
His  authority  is  universally  acknowledged,  and  the  settle- 
ment of  all  disputes  is  referred  to  his  decision.  Though 
nominally  Roman  Catholics,  these  islanders  know  nothing 
of  the  tenets  of  that  Church,  and  their  worship  consists 
of  occasional  meetings  at  their  chief's  house,  with  visits 
to  a  holy  well,  called  in  their  native  tongue  Derivla.1 

All  these  customs  take  us  back  to  the  primitive  idea 
of  rain-making  by  sympathetic  magic  which  is  found  so 
distinctly  in  savage  practice.  Many  examples  might  be 
quoted  supplying  very  close  parallels  to  those  we  have 
just  examined.  In  the  Ta-tu-thi  tribe  of  New  South 
Wales  the  rain-maker  breaks  off  a  piece  of  quartz 
crystal  and  spits  it  towards  the  sky ;  the  rest  of  the 
crystal  being  wrapped  up  in  emu  feathers  soaked  in 
water  and  hidden.2  A  closer  parallel  is  found  in  the 

1  Lord  Roden's  Progress  of  the  Reformation  in  Ireland,  1851,  pp. 
51-54. 

'-  Labat,  Relation  hist,  de  VEthhyriu  occidentale,  ii.  180 ;  Frazer, 
Golden  Bough,  ii.  14.  On  the  altar  of  the  church  in  the  island  of 


170         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

Lampong  country  of  Sumatra.  A  long  stone  standing 
on  a  flat  one  is  supposed  by  the  people  to  possess 
extraordinary  power  or  virtue.  It  is  reported  to  have 
been  once  thrown  down  into  the  water  and  to  have 
raised  itself  again  to  its  original  position,  agitating 
the  elements  at  the  same  time  with  a  prodigious  storm. 
To  approach  it  without  respect  is  believed  to  be  the 
source  of  misfortune  to  the  offender.1  In  Samoa,  too,  a 
remarkably  close  parallel  is  found  to  the  Inniskea  cult. 
When  there  was  over-much  rain,  the  stone  representing 
the  rain-making  god  was  laid  by  the  fire  and  kept 
heated  till  fine  weather  set  in ;  while  in  a  time  of 
drought  the  priest  and  his  followers  dressed  up  in  fine 
mats  and  went  in  procession  to  the  stream,  dipped  the 
stone,  and  prayed  for  rain.2 

These  examples  of  the  ethnological  genealogy  of 
folklore  are  limited  to  subjects  where  two  distinctly 
opposite  phases  of  primitive  thought  are  represented  in 
folklore,  which  are  identified  as  savage  or  as  Aryan  culture 
respectively  by  the  test  of  what  scholars  have  to  some 
extent  agreed  to  define  as  Aryan.  Unfortunately,  the 
area  covered  by  this  agreement  is  not  very  wide,  and 
opinions  are  not  very  settled.  Still  there  does  seem  to 
be  some  sort  of  level  below  which  it  is  admitted  that 

I-colm-kill  was  a  stone  from  which  '  the  common  people  break  pieces 
off,  which  they  affect  to  use  as  medicine  for  man  or  beast  in  most 
disorders  and  especially  the  flux.' — Pococke's  Tour  through  Scotland, 
1760  (Scottish  Hist.  Soc.)  p.  82. 

1  Marsden's  Sumatra,  p.  301.  -  Turner's  Samoa,  p.  45. 


THE  ETHNIC  GENEALOGY  OP  FOLKLOKE   171 

Aryan  culture  cannot  be  shown  to  penetrate,  and  this 
level  is  reached  in  the  examples  we  have  examined. 
No  doubt  Aryan  culture  was  derived  from  pre-existing 
phases  of  savage  culture,  but  when  in  that  stage  the 
Aryan  people  had  not  begun  to  migrate  or  spread  over 
the  earth's  surface. 

It  might  be  possible  to  extend  inquiry  on  the  present 
lines  into  subjects  where  the  test  of  Aryan  research  is 
less  certain  in  its  results,  and  thus  bring  in  the  aid  of 
folklore  to  bear  upon  some  of  the  unsettled  problems  of 
Aryan  history.  Human  sacrifice,  for  instance,  is  stated 
by  Schrader  to  have  taken  a  prominent  place  amongst  the 
offerings  the  Aryans  made  to  heaven ;!  the  continuation 
of  life  after  death,  which  in  the  lower  culture  is  simply 
a  repetition  of  earthly  events  in  the  unknown  home, 
expands  into  the  Aryan  doctrine  of  a  moral  retribution, 
according  to  Dr.  Tylor,2  which,  however,  Schrader  would 
not  accept,  if  his  version  of  Aryan  pessimistic  thought 
is  taken  into  account ;  Professor  Rhys  frequently  points 
out  where  Celtic  heathendom  seems  to  diverge  from  Aryan 
culture  towards  the  ruder  culture  of  non- Aryan  peoples  ; 
special  customs,  like  the  barbarous  rite  of  election  to  the 
kingship  recorded  by  Giraldus  as  obtaining  in  Ireland, 
and  others,  are  considered  by  Mr.  Elton  to  belong  to  the 

1  Prehistoric  Antiquities  of  Aryan  Peoples,  p.  420. 

2  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  86,  88.     In  a  sixteenth  century  sermon, 
by  Dr.  Pemble  (Oxford  ed.  1659),  a  dying  man  is  recorded  to  have 
said  '  of  his  soule  that  it  was  a  great  bone  in  his  body,  and  what 
should  become  of  his  soule  after  he  was  dead,  that  if  he  had  done 
well  he  should  be  put  into  a  pleasant  green  meadow.' 


172  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

non- Aryans  ; 1  while  Miss  Buckland,  on  good  grounds  as 
it  seems  to  me,  denies  that  rod-divination  belongs  to  the 
Aryans.2  I  am  aware  that  if  we  are  ultimately  obliged 
to  follow  Dr.  Gruppe,  much  more  of  what  is  now  con- 
sidered to  be  Aryan  custom  and  belief  will  have  to  be 
thrown  overboard,  and,  so  far  as  my  own  researches  go,  I 
am  prepared  for  such  a  lightening  of  the  ship.  But  it 
will  be  seen  from  these  indications  of  recent  research, 
that  the  scope  of  inquiry  suggested  by  these  pages  is 
likely  to  increase  rather  than  diminish. 

1  Origins  of  English  History,  p.  176  et  scq. 

2  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst. 


173 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   CONTINUATION   OF  RACES 

THE  conclusions  arrived  at  in  the  foregoing  pages  are. 
that  survivals  of  non-Aryan  faiths  and  usages  are  to  be 
found  in  folklore,  and  that  the  conditions  under  which 
these  survivals  are  found  show  that  they  date  from  a  time 
prior  to  the  arrival  of  the  Celts  in  this  country — from 
prehistoric  times,  in  fact.  No  doubt  such  conclusions 
may  seem  a  little  hard  to  digest  by  those  whose  studies 
have  not  allowed  them  to  dwell  upon  '  the  amazing  tough- 
ness of  tradition,'  and  by  those  who  have  never  wandered 
out  of  the  paths  laid  down  by  the  methods  of  chrono- 
logical history.  But  they  may  also  be  questioned  by 
students  of  comparative  culture  on  the  ground  that  tradi- 
tional faiths  and  usages  found  in  an  Aryan  country  cannot 
be  accepted  as  derived  from  a  non-Aryan  people,  unless 
it  can  be  proved  that  they  have  descended  through  the 
agency  of  the  same  people  to  whom  they  originally 
belonged. 

If  for  the  purposes  of  the  present  inquiry  it  does  not 
seem  necessary  to  discuss  objections  which  are  founded 
on  diametrically  opposite  methods  of  research,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  an  objection  founded  on  the  same 


174         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

method  of  research  cannot  be  overlooked  or  set  aside  as 
nought,  especially  as  two  inquiries  have  recently  been 
put  before  the  public  by  Mr.  F.  B.  Jevoiis  and  Dr. 
Winternitz,  which  discuss  some  of  the  Aryan  survivals 
in  folklore  on  the  principles  laid  down  by  comparative 
philology.  These  inquiries  proceed  upon  the  plan  of 
ascertaining  the  common  factors  among  the  Aryan 
peoples,  and  then  discussing  their  presence  among  non- 
Aryan  peoples  on  the  theory  that  the  latter  must  have 
borrowed.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  method  I  have 
adopted  is  opposed  to  this,  in  that  it  does  not  necessarily 
admit  that  even  a  custom  or  belief  common  to  all  Aryan- 
speaking  countries  is  Aryan.  It  might  conceivably  be 
a  common  non- Aryan  custom  borrowed  or  allowed  by 
the  Aryans.  Take  stone  worship,  for  instance.  It  is 
found  in  all  Aryan-speaking  countries  ;  in  India  alone 
it  is  found  as  the  special  feature  of  non- Aryan  tribes 
which  exist  to  this  day,  and  with  this  evidence  from 
ethnography,  coupled  with  the  conclusions  of  comparative 
culture,  we  are  able  to  suggest  that  stone  worship  is 
opposed  to  the  general  basis  of  Aryan  culture.  I  should 
be  inclined  to  argue  on  the  same  lines  against  Schrader's 
acceptance  of  human  sacrifice  as  Aryan.  It  follows, 
therefore,  that  the  question  of  the  continuation  of  races 
after  they  have  become  nominally  extinct  is  a  matter  of 
some  importance  to  my  theory.  If  the  parentage  of  a 
given  set  of  customs  and  beliefs  can  be  reasonably 
established  as  non-Aryan,  how  is  the  descent  to  be  traced 
except  by  means  of  non- Aryan  people,  who  continued 


THE   CONTINUATION  OF  RACES  175 

the  blood  of  their  race,  together  with  the  usages  and  /./ 
beliefs  of  their  race  ?    Clearly,  if  intrusted  to  the  keeping ' 

' 

only  of  Aryan  converts,  these  non- Aryan  usages  and  »;'-•'• 

Vwt?-  • 

beliefs   would  have   become  so   altered   as  not  to   be  . 
recognisable — the  arrest  of  their  development    by  the 
overspread  of  Aryan  culture  would  have  meant  their 
extinction. 

I  will,  then,  direct  attention  to  the  recent  re- 
searches which  go  to  prove  the  late,  nay  present, 
existence  of  descendants  of  prehistoric  non-Aryan 
peoples  in  Britain.  Naturally  we  turn,  first  of  all,  to 
the  most  difficult  of  all  subjects,  the  evidence  of  philo- 
logy. No  one  who  has  followed  Professor  Rhys  in  his 
researches  into  the  Celtic  languages  can  do  otherwise 
than  admit  that  he  has  made  out  a  strong  case  for  non- 
Aryan  influences  of  a  distinct  and  definite  nature  upon 
the  Celtic  tongues  of  Britain,  and  it  seems  now  to  be 
certain  that  the  Picts  of  Scotland  and  the  Scots  of 
Ireland  were  non- Aryan  people.  '  While  the  Brython,' 
he  says,  '  might  go  on  speaking  of  the  non- Aryan  native 
of  Ireland  who  paid  unwelcome  visits  to  this  country  as 
a  Scot,  that  Scot  by  and  by  learned  a  Celtic  language 
and  insisted  on  being  treated  as  a  Celt,  as  a  Goidel,  in 
fact,  that  is,  I  take  it,  how  Scottus  became  the  word 
used  to  translate  Goidel.' l 

This  introduces  a  considerable  parent  stock  of  non- 
Aryan  peoples  almost  at  the  dawn  of  history,  and  that 
they  have  never  been  exterminated  as  a  race  may  be 

1  Rhind  Lectures,  p.  53. 


176         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

proved  by  the  researches  of  Dr.  Beddoe  and  others,  who 
point  out  that  the  features  of  the  dark  non- Aryan  Silures 
of  ancient  Wales  are  still  to  be  traced  in  the  population 
of  Glamorgan,  Brecknock,  Monmouth,  Radnor  and 
Hereford,  while  in  some  parts  of  Pembroke,  Lanca- 
shire, Yorkshire,  Cornwall,  Devon,  Gloucestershire, 
Wilts  and  Somerset,  the  same  racial  characteristics 
present  themselves. ] 

Thus,  then,  while  philology  takes  us  back  to  pre- 
historic non- Aryans,  physiology  takes  us  to  their  modern 
descendants.  May  we  not  then  carry  on  the  inquiry  a 
little  further,  and  endeavour  to  ascertain  whether  the 
condition  of  these  modern  descendants  may  not  help  us 
to  grasp  the  fact  that  non- Aryan  races  are  in  Britain,  as 
in  India,  a  living  factor  to  be  reckoned  with  in  discussing 
the  problem  of  origins  ? 

The  senseless  and  imbecile  destruction  of  ancient 
monuments  has  often  been  commented  upon,  but  the 
preservation  of  these  monuments  has  been  the  subject  of 
but  little  remark.  Who  are  the  preservers — to  whom 
are  we  students  of  the  nineteenth  century  chiefly  in- 
debted for  the  preservation  of  prehistoric  graves  and 
tumuli,  of  stone  circles  and  earthworks — of  Stonehenge 
and  the  Maeshow  ?  How  is  it  that  London  Stone  still 
stands  an  object  of  interest  to  Londoners,  and  the  Coro- 
nation Stone  an  object  of  interest  to  the  nation  ?  The 

1  See  Beddoe's  Ilacrx  of  Jiritain,  p.  26,  and  consult  Mr.  Elton's 
admirable  summary  of  the  whole  evidence  in  his  Origins  of  Ertglitth 
History,  cap.  iv. 


THE   CONTINUATION   OF  EACES  177 

answer  is,  that  throughout  the  rough  and  turbulent 
times  of  the  past,  while  abbeys  and  churches,  and 
castles  and  halls,  have  been  destroyed  and  desecrated, 
these  prehistoric  monuments  have  remained  sacred  in 
the  eyes  of  the  peasantry,  have  been  guarded  by  un- 
known but  revered  beings  of  the  spirit  world,  have  been 
sanctified  by  the  traditions  of  ages.  Legends  where 
stones  have  been  removed  and  miraculously  restored ; 
beliefs  which  point  to  the  barrows  and  tumuli  as  the 
residence  of  fairies  and  ghosts  ;  facts  which  show  the 
resentment  of  people  at  the "  disturbance  of  these  un- 
known memorials  of  the  past,  are  too  well  known  to  need 
illustration  in  these  pages.  But  I  want  to  point  out 
that  the  objects  of  all  this  reverence  are  relics,  princi- 
pally, of  the  non-Aryan  population,  and  to  suggest 
that  the  continuance  of  the  monumental  remains  by 
means  of  the  traditional  beliefs  points  back  unmis- 
takably to  the  living  and  continued  influence  of  the 
people  who  constructed  the  monuments.  The  subject 
is  a  tempting  one  to  linger  over,  and,  when  properly  set 
forth,  shows  exactly  how  the  material  and  immaterial 
remains  of  past  ages  serve  as  complementary  agencies 
to  establish  the  influence  of  the  old  races  of  people. 

There  is  a  less  pleasing  picture,  however,  than  this 
to  discuss.  Non- Aryan  races  have  brought  down  sur- 
vivals of  savage  culture  in  our  folklore,  and  this  has 
not  been  accomplished  without  other  marks  of  their 
savagery.  Mr.  Elton  has  drawn  attention  to  the  facts 
which  tell  in  favour  of  a  story  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis 

N 


178  ETHNOLOGY   IN   FOLKLORE 

being  accepted  as  true  of  some  parts  of  Ireland — little 
patches  of  savagery,  it  may  be,  in  the  midst  of  the  more 
fertile  fields  of  civilisation.  Giraldus  states  that  he 
heard  some  sailors  relate  how  they  were  driven  by  a 
storm  to  the  northern  islands,  and  while  taking  shelter 
there  they  saw  a  small  boat  rowing  towards  them.  It 
was  narrow  and  oblong,  and  made  of  wattled  boughs, 
covered  and  sewn  with  the  hides  of  beasts.  In  it  were 
two  men  naked,  except  that  they  wore  broad  belts  of 
the  skins  of  some  animal  round  their  loins.  They  had 
yjjllowjiair  like  the  Irish,  falling  below  their  shoulders 
and  covering  the  greater  part  of  their  bodies.  The 
sailors  found  that  these  men  came  from  some  part  of 
Coiinaught  and  spoke  the  Irish  language.  They  were 
astonished  at  the  ships  they  saw,  and  explained  that  in 
their  own  country  they  knew  nothing  of  these  things.1 
A  traveller  among  people  thus  described  is  exactly 
on  a  par  with  the  modern  traveller  among  native  races 
of  uncivilised  lands.  The  latter  might  very  frequently 
see  in  the  native  villages  or  hut-dwellings  '  young  maids 
stark  naked  grinding  of  corn  with  certain  stones  to 
make  cakes  thereof, '  the  absence  of  clothing,  the  use  of 
two  stones  for  crushing  the  com,  both  being  indicative 
of  the  savage  state  of  culture.  And  yet  the  above  fact 
is  related  of  the  maidens  of  Cork  in  1603,  by  the 
traveller  Fynes  Moryson,  who  alleges  in  support  of  his 
statement,  that  '  I  have  seen  [them]  with  these  eyes.' 2 

1  Topography  of  Ireland,  lib.  iii.  cap.  xxvi. 

2  Moryson,  Hut.,  of  Ireland,  ii.  372  ;  cf,  15.  Rich's  Description  of 
Ireland,  1610,  p.  40. 


THE   CONTINUATION   OF   EACES  179 

An  Italian  priest  travelling  in  Armagh  is  reported  to 
have  made  a  Latin  distich  upon  the  nakedness  of  the 
women.1  But  an  even  more  startling  picture  is  related 
by  the  same  author  of  a  Bohemian  nobleman  who, 
travelling  in  Ulster,  was  regaled  by  the  chief,  O'Kane. 
'  He  was  met  at  the  door  with  sixteen  women  all  naked 
except  their  loose  mantles ;  whereof  eight  or  ten  were 
very  fair  and  two  seemed  very  nymphes  ;  with  which 
strange  sight  his  eyes  being  dazzled  they  led  him  into 
the  house,  and  there  sitting  down  by  the  tire,  with 
crossed  legs  like  tailors,  and  so  low  as  could  not  but 
offend  chaste  eyes,  desired  him  to  sit  down  with  them. 
Soon  after  O'Kane,  the  lord  of  the  country,  came  in  all 
naked,  excepting  a  loose  mantle  and  shoes  which  he 
put  off  as  soon  as  he  came  in,  and  entertaining  the 
baron  in  his  best  manner  in  the  Latin  tongue,  desired 
him  to  put  off  his  apparel  which  he  thought  to  be  a 
burden  to  him.' 2 

Spenser  describes,  about  the  same  time  as  Moryson, 
the  loose  mantles  which  serve  '  for  their  house,  their 
bed,  and  their  garment.' 3  They  must  have  borne  a  most 
unmistakable  resemblance  to  those  of  the  Toda  women 
of  the  Nilgiri  Hills  in  India.  These  people  are  described 
as  wearing  but  a  simple  robe  thrown  over  both  shoulders, 
and  clasped  in  front  by  the  hand,  and  which  are  often 
thrown  open  to  the  full  extent  of  both  arms  for  the  pur- 
pose of  readjusting  on  the  shoulders.4 

1    Moryson,  op.  cit.  ii.  377.  ''  Moryson,  Travels,  p.  181. 

3  View  of  tJie  State  of  Ireland,  p.  47. 

4  King,  Aboriginal  Tribes  of  Nilgiri  Hills,  p.  9. 

N  2 


180         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

When  William  Lithgow  was  in  Ireland  in  1619,  he 
records  that  he  '  saw  women  traveling  or  toiling  at 
home,  carrying  their  infants  about  their  necks,  and, 
laying  their  dugs  over  their  shoulders,  would  give  suck 
to  their  babes  behind  their  backs  without  taking  them 
in  their  arms.  Such  kind  of  breasts  .  .  .  [were]  more 
than  half  a  yard  long.' T  Such  a  sight  has  been  fre- 
quently witnessed  by  modern  travellers  among  savage 
races.  Thus  the  Beiara  women  of  New  Britain  carry 
their  children  '  on  their  back  in  a  bag  of  network  which 
is  suspended  from  their  forehead  by  a  band ;  their 
breasts  are  so  excessively  elongated  that  they  can  sling 
them  across  their  shoulders  to  enable  the  babe  to  take 
hold  of  the  nipple  without  changing  its  position.'  The 
Tasmanian  women  carried  '  their  children  wrapped  in 
a  kangaroo  skin  which  hang  behind  their  back,  and 
to  suckle  them  it  was  only  necessary  to  throw  their 
breasts,  which  were  excessively  elongated,  over  their 
shoulders.' 2 

It  is  surely  a  matter  of  some  significance,  taking 
into  account  the  facts  we  have  already  dealt  with,  that 
at  Broughton,  in  the  hundred  of  Maelor  Saesiieg,  in 
Flintshire,  the  common  of  Threap  wood  from  time  im- 
memorial was  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  frail  fair,  who 
made  here  a  transient  abode  clandestinely  to  be  freed 
from  the  consequences  of  illicit  love.  '  Numbers  of 
houses,'  says  Pennant,  '  are  scattered  over  the  common 

1  Lithgow's  Travels,  p.  40. 

2  Featherman's  Races  of  Mankind,  ii.  51,  105. 


THE   CONTINUATION   OF  RACES  181 

for  their  reception.  This  tract  till  of  late  years  had  the 
ill-fortune  to  be  extra-parochial.  The  inhabitants, 
therefore,  considered  themselves  as  beyond  the  reach  of 
law.  resisted  all  government,  and  even  opposed  the 
excise  laws,  till  they  were  forced  to  submit,  but  not 
without  bloodshed  on  the  occasion.  Threapwood  is 
derived  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  Threapian,  to  threap,  a 
word  still  in  use,  signifying  to  persist  in  a  fact  or  argu- 
ment be  it  right  or  wrong.  It  is  situated  between  the 
parishes  of  Malpas.  Hanmer,  and  Worthenbury,  but 
belonged  to  none  till  it  was  by  the  late  Militia  Acts 
decreed  to  be  in  the  last  for  the  purposes  of  the  militia 
only  ;  but  by  the  Mutiny  Acts  it  is  annexed  to  the  parish 
of  Malpas.  Still  doubts  arise  about  the  execution  of 
several  laws  within  this  precinct.' l  The  accidents  of 
local  history,  however  varied  and  impressive,  are  hardly 
sufficient  to  account  for  such  a  state  of  things.  The 
persistence  of  old  custom,  driven  from  the  towns  and 
everywhere  where  the  Church  and  State  had  penetrated, 
would  account  for  Threapwood  and  its  peculiar  immu- 
nity, and  it  would  supply  us  with  an  example  of  the 
forces  which  were  at  work  during  the  long  battle 
between  savagery  and  civilisation.  When  Pennant 
described  Threapwood  the  battle  was  nearly  over.  The 
dregs  of  the  unruly  populace  he  might  have  seen  would 
probably  not  present  us  with  an  extended  or  pleasing 
picture  of  ancient  life.  But  at  least  we  have  here  an 
example  where  law  and  morality,  where  the  civilisation 
1  Pennant's  Tours  in  Wales,  i.  290. 


182         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

of  Britain  under  the  Guelphs,  were  not  represented  at 
all.  The  only  question  is,  may  we  extend  such  evi- 
dence ? 

It  is  not  possible  to  extend  it  far  on  the  present 
occasion,  but  it  is  a  subject  which  needs  attention  at 
the  hands  of  those  who  are  investigating  the  records  of 
the  past.  We  of  this  age  are  so  accustomed  to  the 
language  and  the  results  of  civilisation  that  it  becomes 
increasingly  difficult  to  understand  the  ruder  conditions 
of  only  a  century  since.  I  shall,  therefore,  devote  a 
page  or  two  to  this  subject,  selecting  such  evident 
will  serve  for  example  of  what  would  be  forthcoming  by 
further  research. 

In  Ireland,  at  the  conquest  under  Henry  II.,  the 
natives  were  driven  into  the  woods  and  mountains,  and, 
as  Boate  said  in  1652,  these  were  '  called  the  wild  Irish, 
because  that  in  all  manner  of  wildness  they  may  be 
compared  with  most  barbarous  nations  of  the  earth.' ' 
But,  wild  as  they  were,  they  gradually  recovered  much 
of  their  territory,  and  the  English  remaining  there 
'joined  themselves  with  the  Irish  and  took  upon  them 
their  wild  fashions  and  their  language.'  Then  we  have 
Spenser  telling  us  that  '  there  be  many  wide  countries 
in  Ireland  which  the  lawes  of  England  were  never 
established  in  ...  by  reason,  dwelling  as  they  doe 
whole  nations  and  septs  of  the  Irish  together  without 
any  Englishmen  amongst  them,  they  may  doe  what 
they  list.'  They  live  for  '  the  most  part  of  the  yeare 
1  Ireland's  Natural  History,  Sect.  5. 


THE   CONTINUATION   OF   RACES  188 

in  boolies,  pasturing  upon  the  mountaine  and  waste 
wilde  places,  and  removing  still  to  fresh  land  as  they 
have  depastured  the  former ; '  and  he  goes  on  to  say 
that  '  by  this  custome  of  boolying  there  grow  in  the 
meantime  many  great  enormityes  ;  for,  first,  if  there 
be  any  outlawes  or  loose  people  they  are  evermore  suc- 
coured and  finde  reliefe  only  in  these  boolies  .  .  .  more- 
over, the  people  that  live  in  those  boolies  growe  thereby 
the  more  barbarous  and  live  more  licentiously  than  they 
could  in  town.es.'  l 

This  is  the  picture  of  uiicivilisation  in  Ireland.  It 
is  not  the  story  of  a  poor,  degraded  population  falling 
into  bad  habits  from  a  previous  state  of  conformity  to 
the  general  law.  It  is  the  picture  of  a  people  who  had 
never  yet  advanced  from  the  stage  of  uiicivilisation. 
This  may,  perhaps,  be  better  illustrated  by  the  follow- 
ing account  of  a  definite  example  of  '  boolying  '  existing 
in  modern  days. 

There  are  several  villages  in  Achill,  particularly 
those  of  Keeme  and  Keele,  where  the  huts  of  the  in- 
habitants are  all  circular  or  oval,  and  built  for  the  most 
part  of  round  water-washed  stones  collected  from  the 
beach  and  arranged  without  lime  or  any  other  cement. 
During  the  spring  the  entire  population  of  the  villages 
in  Achill  close  their  winter  dwellings,  tie  their  infant 
children  on  their  backs,  carry  with  them  their  loys  and 
some  corn  and  potatoes,  with  a  few  pots  and  cooking 
utensils,  drive  their  cattle  before  them  and  migrate  into 

1  '  View  of  the  State  of  Ireland,'  Tracts  and  Treatises,  vol.  i.  421. 


184         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

the  hills,  where  they  find  fresh  pasture  for  their  flock*. 
There  they  build  rude  huts  or  summer-houses  of  sods 
and  wattles,  called  booleys,  and  then  cultivate  and  sow 
with  corn  a  few  fertile  spots  in  the  neighbouring  valleys. 
They  thus  remain  for  about  two  months  of  the  spring 
and  early  summer  till  the  corn  is  sown ;  their  stock  of 
provisions  being  exhausted  and  the  pasture  consumed 
by  their  cattle  they  return  to  the  shore  to  fish.  No 
further  care  is  taken  of  the  crops,  to  which  they  return 
in  autumn  in  a  manner  similar  to  the  spring  migration.1 
Certainly  the  borderland  between  Scotland  and 
England  cannot  be  said  to  have  become  civilised  until 
late  down  in  history.  Redesdale,  says  Dr.  Robert- 
son, was,  until  quite  recently,  a  very  secluded  valley 
surrounded  by  moors  and  morasses,  and  occupied  to 
a  great  extent  by  shaggy  woods.  Until  all-con- 
quering Rome  planted  her  standard  in  its  centre, 
Redesdale  must  have  been  singularly  inaccessible  to  the 
outer  world.  After  the  Roman  domination  came  to  an 
end  the  district  seems  to  have  remained  undisturbed  by 
Saxon  from  the  east  or  Northman  from  the  west.  In 
their  sylvan  fortresses  the  inhabitants  held  their  own, 
nay,  for  many  generations  did  much  more,  harrying 
and  robbing  their  more  peaceful  neighbours.  Redesdale 
being  a  regality,  with  a  resident  lord  of  the  manor 
supreme  for  centuries,  it  was  found  that  the  king's  writ 
runneth  not  in  Redesdale.  Until  the  time  of  Bernard 
Gilpin,  the  Cheeves — that  is,  the  men  of  Redesdale — 

1   Wilde's  Benvtit*  of  the  Boync,  p.  89. 


THE    CONTINUATION   OF   KACES  185 

were  probably  hardly  Christians,  even  by  profession. 
Their  clergy  and  instructors  are  described  by  Bishop  Fox 
in  1498  as  wholly  ignorant  of  letters,  the  priest  of  ten 
years'  standing  not  knowing  how  to  read  the  ritual. 
Amongst  this  community  of  men,  ignorant,  dissolute, 
accustomed  to  crime,  debarred  by  laws  made  specially 
against  them  from  mixing  freely  with  their  neighbours, 
having  only  slight  connection  with  the  world  beyond 
their  own  morass-girt  vale,  and  intermarrying  amongst 
themselves,  it  may  be  expected  that  old  customs  and 
superstitions  lingered  longer  than  elsewhere.1 

I  will    now  quote  a  curious  account  of  a  savage 
people  once  existing  in  Wales,  from  information  col- 

1  Berwickshire  Naturalists'  Field  Club,  ix.  512.  '  Tradition, 
without  being  supported  by  any  historical  authority,  says  that  the 
square  keep  or  tower  of  Crawley  was  built  by  a  famous  "  Eider  " 
called  Crawley  ;  hence  the  place  got  its  name.  The  tower  was,  at 
an  after  period,  the  residence  of  the  family  of  Harrowgate,  of  one 
of  whom  many  anecdotes  are  yet  extant,  and  amongst  others  is  the 
following  :  Mr.  Harrowgate  possessed  a  remarkably  fine  white  horse, 
for  he  was  not  behind  his  neighbours  in  making  excursions  north  of ' 
the  Cheviot,  and  the  then  proprietor  of  the  Crawley  estate  took  so 
great  a  fancy  to  this  beautiful  charger  that,  after  finding  he  could 
not  tempt  Harrowgate  to  sell  him  for  money,  he  offered  him  the 
whole  of  this  fine  estate  in  exchange  for  his  horse ;  but  Mr.  H.,  in 
the  true  spirit  of  a  Border  rider,  made  him  this  bold  reply :  "  I  can 
find  lands  when  I  have  use  for  them ;  but  there  is  no  sic  a  beast 
(i.e.  horse)  i'  yon  side  o'  the  Cheviot,  nor  yet  o'  this,  and  I  wad  na 
part  wi'  him  if  Crawley  were  made  o'  gold."  How  little  did  the  value 
of  landed  property  appear  in  those  days  of  trouble  and  inquietude, 
and  how  much  less  were  the  comforts  of  succeeding  generations 
consulted  !  The  only  property  of  value  then  to  a  Borderer  was  his 
trusty  arms  and  a  fleet  and  active  horse,  and  these  seem  to  have 
been  the  only  things  appreciated  by  this  old  gentleman.' — Denliam 
Tracts,  17. 


186         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

lected  from  the  locality  for  a  writer  in  the  '  Gentleman's 
Magazine ' : — 

'  I  learn  from  a  letter  which  I  have  received,  that 
"  there  is  a  certain  red-haired,  athletic  race  about  Cayo 
and  Pencarreg,  in  Carmarthenshire,  called  Cochion  (the 
Red  ones).  The  principal  personage  in  the  pedigrees 
of  the  district  is  Meirig  Goch,  or  Meirig  the  Red,  from 
whom  many  families  trace  their  descent.  The  Cochion 
of  Pencarreg  were  in  former  days  noted  for  their  per- 
sonal strength  and  pugnacity  at  the  fairs  of  the  country, 
where  sometimes  they  were  not  only  a  terror  to  others, 
but  to  each  other  when  there  were  none  else  left  with 
whom  they  could  contend."  From  another  letter,  written 
by  a  person  residing  in  a  different  part  of  the  country, 
and  who  wrote  quite  independently  of  the  former,  I 
learn  that  "  the  race  of  people  referred  to  lived  about 
seventy  or  eighty  years  ago,  in  the  parishes  of  Cemaes 
and  Mallwyd,  the  former  in  this  county,  and  the  latter 
in  Merionethshire.  They  were  called  '  Y  Gwyllied 
Cochion.'  Gwyllied,  according  to  Richards  of  Coychurch, 
in  his  '  Thesaurus,'  are  '  spirits,  ghosts,  hobgoblins,'  and 
Gwyll,  a  hag  or  fairy.  '  Red  fairies '  would,  I  suppose 
be  the  best  translation.  They  were  strong  men,  and 
lived  chiefly  on  plunder.  In  some  old  cottages  in 
Cemaes  there  are  scythes  put  in  the  chimneys,  to  prevent 
the  entrance  of  the  depredators,  still  to  be  seen."  In  a 
subsequent  letter  I  was  informed  :  '•  On  further  inquiry, 
I  find  that  the  '  Gwyllied  Cochion  '  can  be  traced  back 
to  the  year  1554,  when  they  were  a  strong  tribe,  having 


THE    CONTINUATION   OF   RACES  187 

their  headquarters  near  Dinas  (city),  Mallwyd,  Merio- 
nethshire. They  were  most  numerous  in  '  Coed  y  Dugoed 
Mawr '  (literally  the  '  wood  of  the  great  dark,  or  black 
wood').  They  built  no  houses,  and  practised  but  few 
of  the  arts  of  civilised  life.  They  possessed  great 
powers  over  the  arrow  and  the  stone,  and  never  missed 
their  mark.  They  had  a  chief  of  their  own  appoint- 
ment, and  kept  together  in  the  most  tenacious  manner, 
having  but  little  intercourse  with  the  surrounding  neigh- 
bourhood, except  in  the  way  of  plundering,  when  they 
were  deemed  very  unwelcome  visitors.  They  would  not 
hesitate  to  drive  away  sheep  and  cattle,  in  great  numbers, 
to  their  dens.  A  Welsh  correspondent  writes  to  me 
thus :  '  They  would  not  scruple  to  tax  (breihii)  their 
neighbours  in  the  face  of  day,  and  treat  all  and  every- 
thing as  they  saw  fit ;  till  at  last  John  Wynn  ap  Mere- 
dydd  and  Baron  Owen  were  sent  for,  who  came  with  a 
strong  force  on  Christmas  night,  1534,  and  destroyed 
by  hanging  upwards  of  a  hundred  of  them.  There  is  a 
tradition  that  some  of  the  women  were  pardoned,  and  a 
mother  begged  very  hard  to  have  her  son  spared,  but, 
on  being  refused,  she  opened  her  breast,  and  said  that 
it  had  nursed  sons  who  would  yet  wash  their  hands  in 
Baron  Owen's  blood !  Bent  on  revenge,  they  watched 
the  Baron  carefully,  and  on  his  going  to  Montgomery 
Sessions,  they  waylaid  him,  and  actually  fulfilled  the 
old  woman's  prediction.  This  place  is  called  to  this  day 
Llidiart  y  Barwn  (the  Baron's  gate),  and  the  tradition 
is  quite  fresh  in  the  neighbourhood.'  He  says  that  the 


188         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

'  Dugoed  mawr '  has  disappeared  long  since,  and  the 
county  is  much  less  woody  than  it  was  centuries  ago. 
But  as  you,  I  presume,  are  more  anxious  to  have 
some  traces  of  the  characteristics  of  the  race  than  a 
history  of  their  actions,  I  have  made  inquiries  on  that 
head,  and  I  find  that  the  Gwyllied  were  a  tall,  athletic 
race,  with  red  hair,  something  like  the  Patagonians  of 
America.  They  spoke  the  Welsh  language.  I  was 
fortunate  enough  to  find  out  some  descendants  of  the 
Gwyllied  on  the  maternal  side,  and  those  in  my  native 
parish  of  Llangurig  (on  the  way  from  Aberystwith  to 
Rhayader).  When  these  Welsh  Kaffirs  were  sent  from 
Mallwyd  they  wandered  here  and  there,  and  some  of  the 
females  were  pitied  by  the  farmers  and  taken  into  their 
houses  and  taught  to  work,  and  one  of  these  was 
married  to  a  person  not  far  from  this  place,  and  the 
descendants  now  live  at  Bwlchygarreg,  Llangurig.  I 
knew  the  old  man  well.  There  certainly  was  something 
peculiar  about  him — he  was  about  seventy  when  I  was  a 
boy  of  fifteen  ;  he  had  dark,  lank  hair,  a  very  ruddy  skin, 
with  teeth  much  projecting,  and  a  receding  brow.  I  never 
heard  his  honesty  questioned,  but  mentally  he  was  con- 
sidered very  much  below  the  average  ;  the  children 
also  are  not  considered  quick  in  anything.  They  do  not 
like  to  be  taunted  with  being  of  the  '  Red  Blood,'  I 
am  told.  I  never  knew  till  lately  that  they  were  in 
any  way  related  to  the  Gwyllied."  ' ' 

1  Gentleman's  Magazine,  1852,  part  ii.  p.  589.  The  condition  of 
the  Welsh  population  also  receives  illustration  from  an  article  in 
Transactions  of  Cymmrodorion  fiociety,  i.  79. 


THE   CONTINUATION  OF   RACES  189 

When  we  come  to  England  we  are  not  any  nearer 
civilisation  so  long  as  we  consider  the  evidence  which 
has  been  kept  so  much  in  the  background.  As  Sir 
Arthur  Mitchell  has  observed,  if  such  facts  as  are 
forthcoming  of  Ireland  and  Scotland  have  not  been 
found  in  England,  it  is  probably  because  they  have  not 
been  looked  for.1 

History  has  preserved  the  fact  that  at  the  battle 
of  Hastings  the  followers  of  Harold  used  battle-mauls 
made  of  stone,  which  they  hurled  against  their  enemies. 
But  such  evidence  has  been  ignored  by  historians,  who 
speak  of  the  great  battle  and  the  opposing  forces  in  the 
same  terms  as  they  apply  to  the  battle  of  Waterloo. 
Stone  weapons  surviving  in  use  for  battle  purposes 
signify  that  ideas  of  the  Stone  Age  might  survive  in 
use  for  the  every-day  purposes  of  social  life.  It  is 
not  easy  to  separate  the  one  from  the  other,  and  cer- 
tainly the  attribution  of  a  Stone  Age  culture  to  some 
of  the  peasantry  of  Britain  in  Anglo-Saxon  times  seems 
to  me  far  less  difficult  to  grasp  than  the  half-poetised 
descriptions  which,  when  made  to  do  duty  for  the  whole 
people,  must  be  wrong,  even  if  they  are  correct  for  the 
governing  classes. 

It  is  not  wise  to  depend  upon  documents  with  a 
political  bias,  but  the  picture  drawn  by  Dudley  Carle- 
ton  in  1606  is  a  very  telling  one.  It  has  relation  to 
the  discussion  in  Parliament  about  the  title  to  be 
assumed  by  James  I.,  and  it  relates  that  '  Sir  W.  Mor- 
1  The  Past  in  the  Present,  p.  279. 


190  ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLORE 

rice  prest  hotly  uppon  the  motion  to  haue  the  King's 
title  of  Great  Britanny  confirmed  by  Act  of  Parlement ; 
but  he  was  answeared  by  one  James,  who  concluded  a 
long  declamation  with  this  description  of  the  Brettons, 
that  they  were  first  an  ydolatrous  nation  and  worshipers 
of  Diuels.  In  the  beginning  of  Christianity  they  were 
thrust  out  into  the  mountaines,  where  they  liued  long 
like  theefes  and  robbers,  and  are  to  this  day  the  most 
base  pesantly  perfidious  people  of  the  world.'  l 

Mrs.  Bray  had  something  to  say  of  the  Devon- 
shire savage  in  her  letters  to  Southey.  Her  picture  of 
the  Dartmoor  family  and  hut  in  her  second  letter  is  in 
strict  accord  with  the  account  of  the  inhabitants  of  a 
village  called  the  Gubbins,  who  were  termed  by  Fuller,  in 
his  English  Worthies,  to  be  'a  lawless  Scythian  sort  of 
people.'  In  Mrs.  Bray's  time  the  term  Gubbins  was  still 
known  in  the  vicinity  of  Heathfield,  though  it  was  applied 
to  the  people  and  not  to  the  place.  They  still  had  the 
reputation  of  having  been  a  wild  and  almost  savage  race  ; 
and  not  only  this,  but  another  name,  that  of  '  cramp 
eaters,'  was  applied  to  them  by  way  of  reproach. 
Instead  of  buns,  which  are  usually  eaten  at  count  iy 
revels  in  the  West  of  England,  the  inhabitants  of  Brent 
Tor  district  could  produce  nothing  better  than  cramps, 
an  inferior  species  of  cake,  and  thus  they  were  called 
cramp  eaters.2 

A  not  altogether  different  picture  from  this  is  por- 

1  Dowextif  Papers,  James  /.,  1606. 

z  Bray  V  Tamar  and  the  Tavy,  i.  22,  236. 


THE    CONTINUATION   OF   EACES  191 

trayed  by  one  of  the  agricultural  reformers  of  the  early 
part  of  the  present  century.  Speaking  of  the  Cam- 
bridgeshire fens,  we  are  told  that  the  '  labourers  are 
much  less  industrious  and  respectable  than  in  many 
counties.  In  the  fens  it  is  easily  accounted  for  :  they 
never  see  the  inside  of  a  church,  or  anyone  on  a  Sunday 
but  the  alehouse  society.  Upon  asking  my  way 
(towards  the  evening)  in  the  fens,  I  was  directed,  with 
this  observation  from  the  man  who  informed  me,  '  Are 
you  not  afraid  to  go  past  the  bankers  at  work  yonder, 
sir  ? '  I  was  told  these  bankers  were  little  better  than 
savages.' l  As  further  evidence  of  how  little  influence 
upon  the  less  frequented  parts  of  the  country  great 
political  events  have  exercised,  we  may  cite  a  most  tell- 
ing example  in  Sussex.  There  is  much  to  show  that 
the  silence  of  Domesday  upon  the  district  of  the  Weald 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  William's  agents  did  not  penetrate 
into  these  wilds,  and  a  few  years  ago  two  distinguished 
geologists  travelling  there  were  startled  by  hearing  a 
Sussex  labourer  speaking  of  William  the  Conqueror  as 
'  Duke  William,'  and  that,  too,  within  sight  of  Senlac.2 
It  will  not,  I  think,  be  considered  that  too  much 
attention  has  been  given  to  this  part  of  the  subject, 
though  it  is  at  the  end  of  our  inquiry.  The  question 
as  to  how  people  act,  live,  eat,  and  sleep  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  question  as  to  how  people  think  and 
believe.  Of  course  the  examples  I  have  given  are  not 

1  Gooch's  Agric.  of  Cambridgeshire,  p.  289. 

2  Journ.  Anthrvj}.  lust.  iii.  52. 


192         ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 

exhaustive ;  but  I  think  they  are  fully  representative 
and  will  help  us  to  understand  how  it  is  that  survivals 
of  savage  thought  and  belief  can  be  traced  here  and 
there  and  can  be  fixed  upon  as  evidence  of  a  race  who 
have  never  risen  to  the  level  of  Celtic  or  Teutonic  or 
Christian  civilisation. 

It  would  appear,  then,  that  cannibal  rites  were  con- 
tinued  in  these  islands   until   historic   times ;    that  a 
naked  people  continued  to  live  under   our   sovereigns 
until    the    epoch   which   witnessed   the    greatness   of 
Shakspeare  ;  that  head-hunting  and  other  indications 
of  savage  culture  did   not   cease  with  the  advent  of 
civilising  influences — that,  in  fact,  the  practices  which 
help  us  to  realise  that  some  of  the  ancient  British  tribes 
were  pure  savages,  help  us  to  realise,  also,  that  savagery 
was  not  stamped  out  all  at  once  and  in  eveiy  place,  and 
that,  judged  by  the  records  of  history,  there  must  have 
remained  little  patches  of  savagery  beneath  the  fair 
surface  which  the  historian  presents  to  us  when  he  tells 
us  of  the  doings  of  Alfred,  Harold,  William,  Edward,  or 
Elizabeth.   It  seems  difficult,  indeed,  to  understand  that 
monarchs  like  these  had  within  their  rule  groups  of 
people   whose   status  was  that  of  savagery;  it  seems 
difficult  to  believe  that  Spenser  and  Raleigh  actually  came 
into  contact  with  specimens  of  the  Irish  savage ;  it  is 
impossible  to  read  the  glowing  pages  of  Kemble  and 
Green  and  Freeman  without  feeling  that  they  have  told 
us  only  of  the  advanced  guard  of  the  nation,  not  of  the 
nation  as  it  actually  was.     Yet  this  is  the  view  which 


THE   CONTINUATION   OF   EACES  198 

folklore  puts  before  us.  Difficult  as  it  may  be  to 
realise,  it  is  undeniably  true  that  the  records  of  uncivili- 
sation  are  as  real  as  those  of  civilisation,  and  that  both 
belong  to  the  same  geographical  area.  The  difficulty  is 
not  to  be  met  by  ignoring  the  least  pleasing  of  the  two 
records  and  magnifying  the  more  pleasing.  It  is  to  be 
met  by  careful  examination  of  the  phenomena,  and  the 
correct  interpretation  of  the  various  elements  and  their 
relationship  one  to  the  other.  The  examples  of  rude 
people  which  have  escaped  the  fatal  silence  of  history 
show  at  least  that,  if  there  is  evidence  of  savage  usages 
and  beliefs  in  folklore,  there  is  evidence  also  of  savage 
people  who  are  capable,  so  far  as  their  standard  of 
culture  shows,  of  keeping  up  the  usages  and  beliefs  of 
savage  ancestors. 


INDEX 


AFRICAN  beliefs,  67-68,  72,  88, 

121.    See  Ashantee,  Budas 
Aged  put  to  death,  135 
Agriculture,  place  of,  in  culture 

development,  70 
Ainos,  influence  of  the  Japanese 

on,  44 
Amalgamation,  principle   of,  in 

folklore,  112 
Ancestors,  eating  of  dead,  120, 

124-125 

—  worship  of,  127 

Animal  guardian  spirits  of  wells, 

88,  92,  103 
Animals,  power  of  witches  over, 

49-50 

—  removed  at  death  of  owner, 
125,  126 

—  sacrifice  of,  136-144 

—  transfer  of  superstitious  prac- 
tices to,  144 

Animism,  67 

Arm,  right,  of  children  kept  un- 

christened,  130 
Arran  Isles,  beliefs  in,  54 
Arrested  development  in  folk- 
lore, 11 
Arresting  powers  in  folklore,  12, 

13,  14,  134,  160 
Arrowheads  (stone),  53-55 
Artemis,  cult  of,  16-17,  19 
Arthur,  King,  living  as  a  raven, 
159 


Aryan  culture,  14,  15,  68 

—  custom   and    belief   in   folk- 
lore, 13,  14,  15,  18,  65,   127, 
134,  156 

Ash  sap  given  to  children  as 

first  food,  129 

Ashantee,  customs  of,  152,  154 
Australians,  rain-making  by,  169 

—  influence  of  conquered  abori- 
gines among,  48 


BANFFSHIRE,  belief  in,  55 
Baptism,  rite  of,  130 
Basques,  couvade  amongst,  133 
Battahs,  head-hunting  by,  153 
Bee,  soul  entering  into,  160 
Bees,  telling    of  the  death    of 

owners  to,  125,  127 
Belisama,  river,  77 
Berrington  well  worship,  82 
Bird  ceremony  in  well  worship, 

87 

Birth  ceremonies,  129 
Blood,  drawing  of,  at  funerals, 

126 

Boar's  head  ceremony,  35 
Bonchurch,   Isle  of  Wight,  well 

worship  at,  81 
Boolying,  custom  of,  183 
Border  customs,  130,  144,  147 
Boyne,  tradition  concerning  the, 

76 


INDEX 


195 


BRA 

Brains  of  enemy  extracted    by 

Irish  warrior,  146 
Breasts  of  Irish  women,  180 
Brindle,  well  worship  at,  83 
Britons,  Ancient,  customs  of,  38, 

120,  130,142,  150,  158 
Brythonic  Celts,  country  of,  88 
Rudas  of  Abyssinia,  influence  of, 

45 
Burial   customs,    120,   121,   125, 

126 
Burmese,  influence  of  hill  tribes 

upon,  45 

Burne,  Miss,  on  well  worship,  83 
Bushes  at  holy  wells,  85 
Butterflies  considered  to  be  souls, 

159 


CAISTOR  gad-whip  ceremony,  36 

Caithness,  beliefs  in,  55 

Cakes  eaten  at  wells,  82 

Cambridgeshire,  condition  of 
labourers  in,  191 

Campbell,  Mr.  J.  F.,  on  race  tra- 
ditions in  folklore,  56 

Cannibalism  in  Britain,  120 

—  in  Aryan  tradition,  157 
Cat-transformations     in    witch- 
craft, 50 

Cattle,  transference  of  supersti- 
tion to,  144 

Cattle-transformations  in  witch- 
craft, 50 

Cauldron,  or  dish,  in  well 
worship,  99-100 

Celtic  districts  of  Britain,  well 
worship  in,  85-105 

Celts,  people  conquered  by.  See 
Non-Aryans 

Ceylon,  demon  beliefs  in,  47 

—  witch  practices  in,  51 
Changes  in  folklore  not  develop- 
ment but  decay,  112 

Cheeves,  or  Eedesdale  men,  184 
Chinese,  influences  of  conquered 
aborigines  upon,  45 


Christianity,    influence    of,    on 

folklore,  12,  14 
Church,  horses'  heads  dedicated 

to,  35  ;  stag  ceremony  in,  35  ; 

human    heads   dedicated    to, 

149 ;    washing  of  images   in, 

168 
Civilisation,   foreign    origin   of 

3-4 ;  European,  17 
Clothes,  offering  of,  at  wells,  84 
Cock,  sacrifice  of,  112 
Connaught,   savage    race  from, 

178 
Conquered  race,  mythic  influence 

of,  41-65 
Cornwall,  animal  sacrifice  in,  138 

—  souls  taking  form  of  animals 
in,  159 

—  well  worship  in,  89-90 
Corpse  used  in  connection  with 

food,  114 

Couvade,  custom  of,  132-133 

Cramp  eaters,  190 

Criminal  caste,  superstitions 
connected  with,  121-122,  140, 
144 

Cursing  at  holy  wells,  87 

Custom  and  ritual,  ethnic  ele- 
ments in,  21-40 

Custom,  force  of,  5 


DAIRY  produce  superstition,  115 

Dale  Abbey,  holy  well  at,  81 

Dancing  at  funerals,  121 

Daubing  customs,  17 

Dead,  cult  of,  non-Aryan,  120, 
125  :  Aryan,  125-127 

Death  by  force,  135 

Decay,  principle  of,  in  folklore, 
112 

Dee  river,  superstition  concern- 
ing, 76-77 

Deer-transformations,  50 

Deisul,  93,  97 

Demons,  belief  in,  48,  53 

Development  and  survival,  1-20 


196 


ETHNOLOGY   IN   FOLKLORE 


DEV 

Devil  represented  by  frogs   in 

well,  86 
Devonshire   folklore,  30-34,  53, 

159,  190 

Dionysiac  mysteries,  17,  28-30 
Dish,  or  cauldron,  in  well  wor- 
ship, 99-100 
Doors  and  windows  opened   at 

death,  125 
Dress,  portions    of,  offered    at 

wells,  84 
Drowning    person,    superstition 

against  helping,  73 
Druidism,  58-62 
Dual  element  in  folklore,  13,  14, 

170 


EEL,  guardian  spirit  of  well,  93 
Elliot,  Sir  W.,  on  race  elements 

in  Indian  custom,  23 
Ellis,  Major,  on  local  and  tribal 

beliefs,  67 
Elsdon  church,  horses'  heads  in, 

35 
Enemies,  savage  treatment  of, 

150-155 

Epilepsy,  cure  of,  115 
Eros,  stone  representation  of,  19 
Esquimaux  origins,  18 
Essex  folklore,  35 
Esthonian  river  beliefs,  72 
Evil,  expulsion  of,  163 
Eyes,  cure  of  sore,  by  wells,  83, 

91 


FAIRIES,  race  origin  of,  63-64, 
161 

—  stealing  the  soul  by,  160 

—  spirits  of  the  wells,  85 

Fat  of  enemy  used  as  saining 

torch,  144,  155 
Father,    performance    of    birth 

ceremonies  by,  131 
Fear  of  the  dead,  120 
Fetichism,  71 
Fire  put  out  at  death,  126,  127 


HAR 

Fire,  birth  ceremonies  at,  131 
Fish,  guardian  spirits  of  wells, 

5)2-93, 101 
Flintshire,  Threapwood  common 

in,  181 
Fly,   guardian    spirit   of    wells, 

102 

Folklore,  growth  of  the  study,  1 
Food  ceremonies  at  birth,  con- 
trasts in,  129-131 
Formula  of  well  worship,   105 : 

of  superstitions  connected  with 

the  dead,    124  ;  of  witch  and 

fairy  beliefs,  65 
Fox's  head   preventive    against 

witchcraft,  35 
Frazer,  Mr.,  on  agricultural  gods. 

69 
Frog-prince  story,  Oxfordshire. 

86 
Frogs,  spirits  of  the  wells,  86 


GAD- WHIP  ceremony  at  Caistor, 

36 
Garland  dressing  at  wells,  81,  83, 

85 

Garos,  customs  of,  152,  158 
Genealogy  of  folklore,  109-172 
Germans,   worship    of    animals" 

heads  by,  34 
Ghosts,  121 

Gloucestershire  folklore,  37,  7 1 
Godiva  legend,  36-40 
Goidelic  Celts,  91 
Grave-mould,  superstition  as  to, 

113-114 
Graves,  disturbance  of,  113-114  : 

non-disturbance  of,  122 
Greek  cults.    See  Artemis,  Dio- 
nysiac, Zeus 
Gubbins,  village  of,  Devonshire, 

190 
Guest-friendship,  156 


Hare-transformations   in  witch- 
craft, 50 


INDEX 


HAR 

Hartland,  Mr.,  on  fairies,  56  ; 
Godiva  ceremony,  37  ;  on  sin- 
eating,  119 

Harvest  goddess  in  India,  27 

Hastings,  battle  of,  stone  axes 
used  at,  189 

Head-hunting,  147,  148,  149, 
153-155 

Head  of  sacrificed  animal,  sanc- 
tity of,  26,  34 

Heart  of  dying  transferred  to 
the  living,  156 

Hearth  god,  127 

Herakles,  stone  representation 
of,  19 

Hereford,  sin-eating  in,  116 

Historians'  record  of  civilisations, 
2-3, 192 

Holne,  custom  at,  32-34 

Holy  mawle,  135 

Hornchurch,  ceremony  at,  35 

Horses'  heads  in  Elsdon  church, 
35 

Human  sacrifice,  60-61,  72,  73, 
78,  126,  140-141,  142,  171 


IMAGE,  wooden,  140 

—  witch,  51 

Images,  church,  washing  of,  168 
Inconsistencies  in  folklore,  8, 13, 

110 
Indian    customs    and  rites,   19, 

22-26.      See    Garos,    Lhoosai, 

Nagas,  Orissa 

—  race  beliefs,  46-47 
Initiation  in  witchcraft,  57 
Inniskea,  stone  worship  in,  168 
Ireland,  animal  sacrifice  in,  140 

—  beliefs  of,  50,  54,  114,  115 

—  couvade  in,  132 

—  expulsion  of  evil  in,  163 

—  metempsychosis  in,  159 

—  stone  worship  in,  168 

—  swearing  upon  the  skull,  146 

—  war  customs,  146-147 

—  well  worship  in,  91-94 
Irish,  nakedness  of,  178-179 


talones,  treatment  of   enemies 
by,  151,  153 


KELLY,  W.,  on  Zeus  tradition, 

129 
Kempoch  Stane,  Firth  of  Clyde, 

49 

lindred,  eating  of,  124 
King's     Teignton,    custom    at, 

30-32 


LANCASHIRE  well  worship,  83 
Land,  contempt  for  property  in, 

185 
Lang,  Mr.,   on    comparison    in 

folklore,  8  ;  on  cult  of  Artemis, 

16 
Langobards,  adoration  of  goat's 

head  by,  34 

Lauder,  stone  implements  at,  55 
Lhoosai,  customs   of,   151,   154, 

157 

Lincolnshire  folklore,  36,  115 
—  well  worship,  84 
Lludd,  god  of  the  Severn,  75 
Localisation  of  primitive  belief, 

66-108 

Locality  and  race,  18 
Long  Barrow  interments,  149 
Lubbock,    Sir    J.,  on    race  ele- 
ments in  manners  and  customs 
15-16 

Ludgate  Hill,  name  of,  75 
Lydney  Park  pavement,  74 


MADAGASCAR,  influence  of  con- 
quered aborigines  in,  43 

Madness,  cure  of,  at  wells,  89, 
98 

Maiden  names  retained  by 
married  women,  131 

Malays,  influence  of  conquered 
aborigines  upon,  44-45 

Man,  Isle  of,  sale  of  wind  in,  49 


198 


ETHNOLOGY  IN  FOLKLOKE 


MAO 

Maoris,    treatment   of    enemies 

by,  151,  153 

Materialism  in  folklore,  119 
Meels,  mould  from  graveyard, 

113 

Megalithic  monuments,  106 
Metempsychosis,  158 
Midsummer  fires,  112 
Milk,  Irish  superstitious  practice 

with,  114 
Monuments,      destruction      of, 

176 
Mother,  performance    of    birth 

ceremonies  by,  131 
Moths  considered  to  be  souls, 

158 
Mould  from  graveyard,  113-114 


NAGA  hill  tribes,  head-hunting 
by,  154,  158 

Naked  votaries  at  sacred  festi- 
vals, 24,  28,  38,  39 

Nakedness  of  Irish,  178-179 

Name,  efficacy  of,  in  magic 
ritual,  88 

Natural  objects,  worship  of, 
66-108 

Neevougi,  Irish  god,  168 

New  Guinea,  influence  of  con- 
quered aborigines  in,  48 

Nightjar,  souls  of  unbaptised 
children  embodied  in,  159 

Nodens,  god  of  the  Severn,  75 

Non-Aryan  race,  traces  of,  91, 
175,  176 

Non-Aryans,  folklore  origins 
traced  to,  14,  19,  29,  65,  107, 
120,  133,  135,  136,  155,  158, 
161,  164,  165 

Northamptonshire  cattle  sacri- 
fice, 138 

Northumberland,  offering  of 
horses'  heads,  35 ;  well  worship, 
84 

Nuada,  god  of  the  Severn,  75 

Nutt,  Mr.,  on  the  cauldron  in 
Celtic  myth,  100 


RAG 

ODIN,  legend  of,  83 
Ointment,  magic,  51 
Oran,  St.,  sacrifice  of,  61 
Orissa,  witch  beliefs  in,  50 
Orkney,    objections     to    rescue 

drowning  persons  in,  73 
—  sale  of  wind  in,  49 
Oswestry,  well  worship  at,  85 
Oxenham  family,  tradition  con- 
cerning, 159 
Oxford,  sin-eating  in,  116 


PALLAS    Athene,    stone    repre- 
sentation of,  19 
Pastoral  life,  place  of,  in  culture 

development,  70 
Peg  o'Nell,  spirit  of  the  Eibble, 

77 

Peg  Powler,  spirit  of  the  Tees,  77 
Pembrokeshire, sale  of  wind  in,48 
Peru,  expulsion  of  evil  in,  164 
Pharaeans,  stones  worshipped  by, 

19 
Philology,    evidence   of,    as    to 

non-Aryans,  175 
Physical  types  of  non-Aryans,  176 
Picts,  well  worship  by,  107 
Pins  thrown  into  wells,  82,  83, 

84,  86,  89 

Pitt-Rivers,  General,  on  rag  offer- 
ings, 106 

Potraj,  Indian  rural  god,  22 
Priest,  or  priestess,  at  well  rites, 

87,  89 

Principles  of  folklore,  non-de- 
velopment, 7 ;  arrested  by 
hostile  forces,  1 1  ;  changes  by 
decay,  112  ;  non-materialistic, 
119 


RACK  elements  in  folklore,  11- 

12,  19,  58 

Races,  continuation  of,  173-193 
Rag  offerings,  geographical  area 

of  custom,  105-106 
Rag- wells,  91,  95,  96,  97 


INDEX 


199 


Eain-god,  traces  of  worship,  94, 
100 ;  represented  by  stones, 
168 

Raven-transformations,  50,  159 

Red  race  of  people  in  Caermar- 
thenshire,  186-188 

Redesdale,  savagery  of,  184-185 

Rhys,  Professor,  on  Celtic  divini- 
ties, 69,  70 ;  on  Celts,  91  ;  on 
Picts,  107  ;  on  Celtic  languages, 
175  ;  on  Druidism,  62 

Ribble,  river,  superstitions  con- 
cerning, 77 

River  worship,  71-78 

Road,  corpse  not  carried  along  a 
private,  120 

Rod  divination,  172 


ST.  BRIAVELS,  Godiva  ceremony 
at,  37 

St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  stag  cere- 
mony in,  35 

Salmon,  guardian  spirit  of  well, 
93 

Samoans,  head-hunting  by,  154  ; 
rain-making,  170 

Savagery,  folklore  parallels  to, 
9-10.  See  Uncivilisation 

Scotland,  animal  sacrifice  in, 
137-138,  139 

—  beliefs  of,  50,  52,  54,  113, 118, 
120,  129 

—  couvade  in,  133 

—  sale  of  wind  in,  49 

—  stone  worship  in,  165 

-  well  worship  in,  94-102,  107. 

See  Orkney,  Shetland 
Sefton,  well  worship  at,  83 
Sena,  priestesses  of,  49,  101 
Severn,  river,  beliefs  concerning, 

74 

Shetland  folklore,  114 
Shropshire,  sin-eating  in,  117 

—  well  worship,  81-82,  85-86 
Siamese,  influence  of  hill  tribes 

upon,  45 


TRO 

Sickness,  transfer  of,  142-143 
Silence,  ceremony  at  wells  per- 
formed in,  99 
Sin-eating,  116 
Skull  superstition,  115,  145 
Smith,      Prof.      Robertson,     on 
Semitic  religions,  67,  68,  78  ; 
on  well  worship,  103,  107 
Solomon  islanders,  treatment  of 

enemies  by,  151,  153 
Soul,  beliefs  as  to  the,  158-160, 

171 

Soul-mass  cakes,  126,  127 
Southam,  Godiva   ceremony  at, 

17,37 
Sparrow  considered  as  the  soul, 

159 

Spey,  river,  yearly  victim  neces- 
sary for,  74 

Sterling,  ceremony  at,  39 
Stone  arrowheads,  53-55 
Stone  worship,  19,  27,  165-170 
Storm  raising,  167 
Substitution  in  folklore,  112 
Sumatra,  rain-making  in,  170 
Survival  and  development,  1-20 
Survivals,  arrested  development 

of,  7 
Sussex  tradition  of  William  the 

Conqueror,  191 
Swans,  virgins'  souls  pass  into, 

159 

Sword,  food  given  on,  to  chil- 
dren, 130 
Symbolism  in  folklore,  112 


TEES,  river,  sprite  of  the,  77 
Teutonic    centres    of    England, 

well  worship  in,  80-85 
Threapwood  in  Flintshire,  180- 

181 
Tongue,  tips  of,  taken  by  Irish 

warriors,  146 

Tribal  gods  and  local  gods,  68 
Trophy,  war,  156 
Trout,    miraculous,     in    sacred 

wells,  92,  93,  101 


200 


ETHNOLOGY  IN   FOLKLOEE 


Tweed,  people  supposed  to  be 
descendants  of,  73 

Tylor,  Dr.,  on  civilisation,  3 ; 
on  folklore  and  savagery,  9 ; 
on  animism,  67  ;  on  soul-mass 
cakes,  127  ;  on  metempsycho- 
sis, 161 


UGLY  Burn,  river,  water  spirits 

of,  73,  74 
Uncivilisation,  native  origin  of, 

4-5 ;  examples  of  in  Britain, 

178-192 


VICTORIA  aborigines,  fat  of  dead 
man  used  by,  1 52 


WALES,  animal  sacrifice  in,  138 

—  beliefs  of,  50 

—  non- Aryan  races  in,  176 

—  savage  people  in,  186 

—  sin-eating  in,  117,  118 


ZEU 

Wales,  well  worship  in,  86-87,  90 
\Valhouse,  Mr.    M.  J.,    on    rag 

offerings,  105 
Warwickshire     folklore.        See 

Godiva 

Well  worship,  76,  78-108 
Welsheries,  82 
William  the  Conqueror  in  Sussex 

tradition,  191 
Wind,  sale  of,  48-49 
Wise  man  of  Yorkshire  villages, 

112 
Witch  beliefs,   35,   48-62,   115, 

140-141 

Witchcraft,  race  origin  of,  48-65 
Worm,  guardian  spirit  of  wells, 

802 

YOEE,  river,  spirits  of  the,  78 
Yorkshire,  animal  sacrifice  in,  138 

—  beliefs,  50,  54,  122 

—  couvade  in,  133 

—  well  worship,  84 

ZEUS,  feeding  of  the  infant,  129 


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